Victor Herbert’s
the Red Mill
The Victor Herbert Renaissance Project LIVE! launched its fourth season with Broadway’s longest running success by Victor Herbert and Henry Blossom. This 1906 musical comedy, The Red Mill, is the story of how two American con men, Con Kidder (Bass/Baritone Matthew Wages) and Kid Conner (Tenor Drew Bolander), broke, stranded in Holland, agree to aid a damsel (Soprano Sarah Caldwell Smith) in distress. She is being forced by her father the Burgomaster (Baritone Anthony Maida) to marry for old musty prestige — a governor (Baritone David Seatter) — while her true love (Tenor Christopher Robin Sapp) is sailing the bounding sea. Madcap capers involving the legend of an old mill run by the Burgomaster’s sister (Soprano Vira Slywotzky) quickly land our lovers in jail, but the day is saved as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson ride to the rescue! Musical numbers include “Moonbeams,” “The Isle of Our Dreams,” “The Streets of New York,” “Everyday is Ladies’ Day With Me” and “Just Because You’re You.”
The Red Mill, opened on Broadway September 24, 1906, and became the single most financially successful Herbert work to ever grace a Broadway stage, running 274 performances the first time out and adding another 531 Broadway performances when it was revived at the Ziegfeld Theatre in 1945. Artistic Director of VHRP LIVE!, Alyce Mott, explains “The Red Mill was written for the famous vaudevillian team, David C. Montgomery (1870-1917) and Fred A. Stone (1873-1959). The two men became partners in 1896 and roared to Broadway fame as the Tin Man and the Scarecrow in the 1903 extravaganza Wizard of Oz.” Mott adds “The Red Mill’s producer Charles Dillingham made theatrical history by adding a revolving, electrically lit red windmill to the top of the Knickerbocker Theatre, giving the Broadway theater district its first trademark signage spectacle. Between Montgomery and Stone and the moving sign, Broadway had a new hit filled with the music of Victor Herbert.”
The Red Mill includes the additional singing voices and acting talents of Daniel Greenwood, Jonathan Fox Powers, Jonathan Heller, Alexa Devlin, Brian Kilday, Joanie Brittingham, Tanya Roberts, Shane Brown, and Hannah Kurth. Musical direction is by Michael Thomas; libretto and stage direction by Alyce Mott; asst. direction and choreography by Emily Cornelius.
8pm, Tuesday, November 14, 2017
8pm, Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Christ & St. Stephens Episcopal Church
120 W. 69th Street, New York, NY 10023
THE REVIEWS ARE IN!
“You might say: wow, the Americans are catching on! The announcement of the concert Angeline And Her Tattooed Man is easily the sexiest we’ve seen for such an undertaking in the USA in a very long time, certainly where Victor Herbert is concerned.”
OPERETTA RESEARCH CENTER, The #1 Archive for Musical Theater
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(L-R) Sarah Caldwell Smith, Mitchell Roe, Robert Balonek, Matthew Wages, Vira Slywotzky, David Seatter, Katherine Corle, Erika Person, Bray Wilkins performing “Don Jose of Sevilla” from The Serenade (1897) Lyrics by Harry B. Smith. Photo by Jill LeVine