The Student Prince In Heidelberg

Bucking the popularity of fast-moving, up-to-date musical comedy and the plotless revue, The Student Prince in Heidelberg (the complete title was used throughout the New York run) set the record as the longest running musical of the decade. That fact is all the more impressive since the theatre in which it played, on 59th Street and 7th Avenue, was some distance from the theatre district (the playhouse, later renamed the New Century, was demolished in 1962). Based on Old Heidelberg, a popular turn-of-the-century play which had been adapted from the German Alt Heidelberg, the sentimental operetta is set in 1860 in the German university town where Prince Karl Franz (Howard Marsh) has gone with his tutor, Dr. Engel (Greek Evans), to complete his education. There he meets Kathie (llse Marvenga), a waitress at the Inn of the Three Golden Apples, and it isn’t long before they are professing their love through the melting strains of, “Deep in my heart, dear, I have a dream of you ... The prince, however, is soon called away to assume the throne. Two years later, King Karl Franz returns to Heidelberg in a vain effort to recapture the golden days of his youth. The Student Prince toured the United States between 1925 and 1933, was revived on Broadway in 1931 and 1943, and joined the repertory of the New York City Opera in 1980. A silent film verson, with Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer, was made in 1927; a Technicolor version, with Edmund Purdom (using Mario Lanza’s singing voice) and Ann Blyth, was made in 1954. A previous Broadway musical, The Prince of Pilsen of 1903, also had a Heidelberg student prince as a leading romantic character. The Student Prince in Heidelberg. Howard Marsh and llse Marvenga. (White)

Music

Sigmund Romberg

Lyrics

Dorothy Donnelly

Book

Dorothy Donnelly