Blossom Time

For the first Broadway musical with songs based on themes from classical compositions, Sigmund Romberg was assigned by the producing Shuberts to adapt melodies by the composing Schubert. The fanciful biographical libretto — a variation on a Viennese operetta, Das Dreimaederlhaus — deals with the composer’s supposed unrequited love for one Mitzi Kranz. When, at Schubert’s request, his friend Baron Schober sings the composer’s “Song of Love” to Mitzi, she becomes enamored of the baron, and poor Schubert, no longer inspired, is unable to complete his “Unfinished Symphony.” Four road companies of Blossom Time were sent out soon after the opening at the Ambassador Theatre (on 49th Street west of Broadway), and the operetta had five revivals in New York, the most recent in 1943. Broadway has also offered musicals with scores derived from works by such composers as Offenbach in The Love Song (1925) and The Happiest Girl in the World (1961); Tschaikowsky in Nadja (1925) and Music in My Heart (1947); Chopin in White Lilacs (1928) and Polonaise (1945); Grieg in Song of Norway (1944); Fritz Kreisler in Rhapsody (1944); Villa Lobos in Magdalena (1948); Borodin in Kismet (1953); and Rachmaninoff in Anya (1965).

"The World-Acclaimed Operetta": the show's own period marketing line.

Music

Sigmund Romberg, based on Franz Schubert

Lyrics

Dorothy Donnelly

Book

Dorothy Donnelly