In the first in London on 11 March 1925, Youumans’ musical will conquer the world. In the USSR Šostakovič Orchestrasted a song in 45 minutes. In Italy 50 years ago the Operetta Rai with Elisabetta Viviani, Agus, Lippi, Bertè and Rich and Poor.
The same symbol of the Belle Epoque, the European operetta survived the total remediation of the company due to the First World War and transfigured into the overwhelming formula of the American musical, revisiting to stars and stripes of that style that was not “high” enough like the lyrical work but not even a collage of successful songs linked by an aile plot. The year after the one in which George Gershwin, a lucky author of songs, gave jazz symphonic guise with the revolutionary Rhapsody in Blue, Vincent YouNans presented the musical “NO, NO, Nanette” composed on lyrics of Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach at the Palace Theater in London. On March 11, 1925, a show debuted that would have 664 replies, and that equal success would claim Broadway, where he would land on September 16, remaining a year on the bill. Jazz entered the world of waltz, sparkling it and taking the whole scene, inaugurating a new season of the musical theater in the “roaring years”, from prohibition to New Deal, passing from the cabaret and even overcoming the tragedy of the Second World War.
The lightness, the intertwining, the panache and the captivating melodies
Nanette is the millionaire pupil John Smith, who became rich by publishing the Bible, and his wife Sue. Despite the good intentions of the couple who intends to make a woman prepared at the entrance to the high society, the girl still intends to have fun in Atlantic City, in tune with Tom Trainor. But Jimmy does not give up from his personal philanthropist mission that applies to young and likeders’ women, such as Betty, Winnie and Flora, going to play in a series of troubles, because they aim for his money and make him find it in embarrassing situations. The uncle of Tom, by profession lawyer, gives him advice to get rid of the three women, like that of leaving in Philadelphia, but the shrewd nephew Nanette is the true architect of his bailouts. Atlantic City really happens of everything, in a pyrotechnic game of misunderstandings on attractions and alleged betrayals between couples, and it is here that Nanette and Tom confess mutual love. Solved for the best every possible unpleasant implication, close to John and his arrivals to the point of divorcing, the two young people decide to get married happily. And it’s a party for everyone with songs and dances.
From Thea for Two to stars and stripes to the bet of Tahiti Trot in Russian sauce
On October 1927 the Soviet composer Dmitrij Šostakovič was listening to the radio with the director Nikolaj Malko an edition of “No, No, Nanette”, and their attention had been attracted by “Thea for Two”. Malko then challenged Šostakovič to riotcrone that song at most in an hour, and for that bet he pulled out one hundred rubles. The musician did not repeat him twice: he entered a room, took the pentagrammata paper and succeeded outside with the complete score, leaving Malko speechless and without a hundred rubles in his pocket. The same director will perform the “Tahiti Trot” op. 16 (as the composition had been renamed) on November 27, 1928 at the Moscow Conservatory. Since then there are not few who are deceived in the attribution of music, between the original American version and the refined Soviet one.
Great success for the TV adaptation of Vito Molinari proposed on the first network
In 1974, the director Vito Molinari, specialized in the genre, created the versions of some successful operettas with Rai with rai, with the most first plan that were broadcast in two parts on Saturday evening: “Alla Cavallino” (30 November/7 December, in black and white) by Ralph Benatzky, Robert Stolz, Robert Gilbert and Bruno Granichstaedten, on booklet by Hans Müller-Eineigen. and Erik Charrell, with Angela Luce, Tony Renis, Gianni Nazzaro, Gianrico Tedeschi, Mita Medici, Paolo Poli, Maurizio Micheli, Mario Pisu; “The water keta” (14/21 December, in color) by Giuseppe Pietri on a libretto by Augusto Novelli with Nada Malanima, Nino Castelnuovo, Gianrico Tedeschi, Renzo Montagnani, Ave Ninchi and Daniela Poggi; And finally (December 28, 1974/4/4, 1975, in color) «No, No, Nanette», with Elisabetta Viviani, Gianrico Tedeschi, Lia Zoppelli, Claudio Lippi, Marianella Laszlo, Gianni Agus, Claudia Caminito, Ombretta Colli, Giuliana Rivera, Loredana Bertè, rich and poor. And with millions of viewers for Saturday evening in the family. It was really another Italy, and it was also another Rai.