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109-412: The company's reputation was strong enough that they were referenced in popular songs. In 1919, Cole Porter wrote about them in the song "I Introduced" from Hitchy-Koo of 1919 , from the point of view of a man who claims to have "presented Mister Peet to Mister Rogers," having also introduced several other famous partnerships such as Morgan/Hajes, Lord & Taylor and Moet & Chandon. The song "Marry

218-587: A "patriotic comic opera" modeled on Gilbert and Sullivan , with a book by T. Lawrason Riggs , was a flop, closing after two weeks. Porter spent the next year in New York City before going overseas during World War I. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I , Porter moved to Paris to work with the Duryea Relief organization. Some writers have been skeptical about Porter's claim to have served in

327-609: A 2004 Irwin Winkler film starring Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda. The soundtrack to De-Lovely includes Porter songs sung by Alanis Morissette , Sheryl Crow , Elvis Costello , Diana Krall and Natalie Cole , among others. Porter also appears as a character in Woody Allen 's 2011 film Midnight in Paris . Many events commemorated the centenary of Porter's birth, including

436-610: A brief time at the New York Historical Society , his 1908 Steinway grand piano, which he had used when composing since the mid-1930s, has been displayed and often played in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . Porter is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame and Great American Songbook Hall of Fame, which recognized his "musically complex [songs] with witty, urbane lyrics". In 2014, Porter

545-593: A concert that included his familiar classics. The Cole Porter Festival is held every year in June in his hometown of Peru, Indiana, to foster music and art appreciation. Costumed singers in the cabaret-style Cole Porter Room at the Indiana Historical Society 's Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center in Indianapolis take requests from visitors and perform Porter's hit songs. Since Porter's death, except for

654-880: A conspicuous comeback in 1948 with Kiss Me, Kate . It was by far his most successful show, running for 1,077 performances in New York and 400 in London. The production won the Tony Award for Best Musical (the first Tony awarded in that category), and Porter won for best composer and lyricist. The score includes " Another Op'nin', Another Show ", "Wunderbar", " So In Love ", "We Open in Venice", " Tom, Dick or Harry ", "I've Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua", " Too Darn Hot ", " Always True to You (in My Fashion) ", and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare". Porter began

763-444: A genre of light opera . It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, and length of the work. Apart from its shorter length, the operetta is usually of a light and amusing character. The subject matter may portray "lovers' spats, mistaken identities, sudden reversals of fortune, and glittering parties". It sometimes also includes satirical commentaries. "Operetta"

872-555: A humorous sketch in their CBS television series. You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story , a video of archival material and interviews, and Red, Hot and Blue , a video of artists performing Porter's music, were released in 1990 to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Porter's birth. In contrast to the highly embellished 1946 screen biography Night and Day , Porter's life was chronicled more realistically in De-Lovely ,

981-408: A large surplus of recreational drugs ". In 1918, he met Linda Lee Thomas , a rich, Louisville, Kentucky -born divorcée eight years his senior. She was beautiful and well-connected socially; the couple shared mutual interests, including a love of travel, and she became Porter's confidante and companion. The couple married the following year. She was in no doubt about Porter's homosexuality, but it

1090-455: A medley of Porter's songs at the 37th Academy Awards shortly after Porter's death. The biographical show Cole , by Alan Strachan and Benny Green , featuring Porter hits, ran in 1974 at London's Mermaid Theatre . In 1980, Porter's music was used for the score of Happy New Year , based on the Philip Barry play Holiday . The cast of The Carol Burnett Show paid a tribute to Porter in

1199-500: A more prestigious outlet than Broadway for her husband's talents, tried to use her connections to find him suitable teachers, including Igor Stravinsky , but was unsuccessful. Finally, Porter enrolled at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he studied orchestration and counterpoint with Vincent d'Indy . Meanwhile, Porter's first big hit was the song "Old-Fashioned Garden" from the revue Hitchy-Koo of 1919 . In 1920, he contributed

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1308-590: A musical genre around 1850 in Paris. In 1870, the centre for operetta shifted to Vienna when Paris fell to the Prussians. The form of operetta continued to evolve through the First World War . There are some common characteristics among operettas that flourished from the mid-1850s through the early 1900s, beginning with the French opéra-bouffe . They contain spoken dialogue interspersed between musical numbers, and often

1417-421: A new approach to producing musicals. Instead of commissioning book, music and lyrics and then casting the show, Freedley sought to create an ideal musical with stars and writers all engaged from the outset. The stars he wanted were Ethel Merman , William Gaxton and comedian Victor Moore . He planned a story about a shipwreck and a desert island, and for the book he turned to P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton . For

1526-459: A pre-Broadway tour, during which it ran into trouble with Boston censors, it achieved 408 performances, beginning at the 46th Street Theatre . The score included "But in the Morning, No" (which was banned from the airwaves), " Do I Love You? ", " Well, Did You Evah! ", "Katie Went to Haiti" and another of Porter's up-tempo list songs, " Friendship ". At the end of 1939, Porter contributed six songs to

1635-509: A profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to musical theatre . After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs. After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of

1744-434: A run of 477 performances. Porter wrote two more film scores and music for a television special before ending his Hollywood career. The film High Society (1956), starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly , included Porter's last major hit song " True Love ". It was adapted as a stage musical of the same name . Porter also wrote numbers for the film Les Girls (1957), which starred Gene Kelly. His final score

1853-400: A simpler form of music. Many scholars have debated as to which composer should be credited as the inventor of operetta; Jaques Offenbach or Hervé. It is concluded that Hervé completed the groundwork, and Offenbach refined and developed the art form into the concept of operetta as we know it today. Therefore, "Offenbach is considered the father of French operetta – but so is Hervé." Hervé

1962-571: A song called " Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång " ("That Girl from the Cole Porter Song") in 1982. He is referenced in the merengue song "The Call of the Wild" by David Byrne on his 1989 album Rei Momo . He also is mentioned in the song "Tonite It Shows" by Mercury Rev on their 1998 album Deserter's Songs . After Can-Can was adapted as a film , the soundtrack won the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album . In 1965, Judy Garland performed

2071-555: A transatlantic style, and the presence of ragged marching tunes. Berlin operettas also sometimes included aspects of burlesque , revue , farce , or cabaret . Paul Lincke pioneered the Berlin operetta in 1899 with Frau Luna , which includes " Berliner Luft " ("Berlin Air"), which became the unofficial anthem of Berlin. His Lysistrata (1902) includes the song and tune " The Glow-Worm ", which remains quite popular internationally. Much later, in

2180-562: Is Leon Jessel 's extremely popular 1917 Schwarzwaldmädel ( Black Forest Girl ). These bucolic, nostalgic, home-loving operettas were officially preferred over Berlin-style operettas after 1933, when the Nazis came to power and instituted the Reichsmusikkammer (State Music Institute), which deprecated and banned "decadent" music like jazz and similar "foreign" musical forms. In the beginning of twenty-first century, German revival of operetta

2289-558: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Cole Porter Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in Hollywood films . Born to a wealthy family in Indiana , Porter defied his grandfather's wishes for him to practice law and took up music as

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2398-626: Is in a class by himself", and Porter subsequently called it one of his two perfect shows, along with the later Kiss Me, Kate . Its songs include " I Get a Kick Out of You ", " All Through the Night ", " You're the Top " (one of his best-known list songs), and "Blow, Gabriel, Blow", as well as the title number . The show ran for 420 performances in New York (a particularly long run in the 1930s) and 261 in London. Porter, despite his lessons in orchestration from d'Indy, did not orchestrate his musicals. Anything Goes

2507-531: Is interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in his native Peru, Indiana, between his wife and father. Many artists have recorded Porter songs, and dozens have released entire albums of his songs. In 1956, jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald released Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook . In 1972, she released another collection, Ella Loves Cole . Among the many album collections of Porter songs are

2616-521: Is strictly a creative luxury." Porter also wrote for Hollywood in the mid-1930s. His scores include those for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Born to Dance (1936), with James Stewart , featuring " You'd Be So Easy to Love " and " I've Got You Under My Skin ", and Rosalie (1937), featuring " In the Still of the Night ". He wrote the score of the short film Paree, Paree , in 1935, using some of

2725-585: Is the Italian diminutive of "opera" and was used originally to describe a shorter, perhaps less ambitious work than an opera. Operetta provides an alternative to operatic performances in an accessible form targeting a different audience. Operetta became a recognizable form in the mid-19th century in France, and its popularity led to the development of many national styles of operetta. Distinctive styles emerged across countries including Austria-Hungary, Germany, England, Spain,

2834-822: The French Foreign Legion , but the Legion lists Porter as one of its soldiers and displays his portrait at its museum in Aubagne . By some accounts, he served in North Africa and was transferred to the French Officers School at Fontainebleau , teaching gunnery to American soldiers. An obituary notice in The New York Times stated that, while in the Legion, "he had a specially constructed portable piano made for him so that he could carry it on his back and entertain

2943-626: The Gounod parody Le petit Faust (1869) and Mam'zelle Nitouche (1883). Jacques Offenbach is most responsible for the development and popularization of operetta—also called opéras bouffes or opérettes —giving it its enormous vogue during the Second Empire and afterwards. In 1849, Offenbach obtained permission to open the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, a theatre company that offered programs of two or three satirical one-act sketches. The company

3052-761: The Prussian defeat in 1866 , operetta became the sign of a new age in Austria, marked by modernity and industrialization. The most significant composer of operetta in the German language was the Austrian Johann Strauss II (1825–1899). Strauss was recruited from the dance hall and introduced a distinct Viennese style to the genre. Strauss was highly influenced by the work of Offenbach, so much so that he collaborated with many of Offenbach’s librettists for his most popular works. His operetta, Die Fledermaus (1874), became

3161-622: The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in October 1923. After a successful New York performance the following month, the Ballets suédois toured the work in the U.S., performing it 69 times. A year later the company disbanded, and the score was lost until it was reconstructed from Porter's and Koechlin's manuscripts between 1966 and 1990, with help from Milhaud and others. Porter had less success with his work on The Greenwich Village Follies (1924). He wrote most of

3270-427: The "comique" part of the genre name had become misleading: Georges Bizet 's Carmen (1875) is an example of an opéra comique with a tragic plot. The definition of "comique" meant something closer to "humanistic", meant to portray "real life" in a more realistic way, representing tragedy and comedy next to each other, as Shakespeare had done centuries earlier. With this new connotation, opéra comique had dominated

3379-482: The 1860s and 1870s are described as rowdy and loud. Operetta was considered one of the major controversies about Italian music and culture between the 1860s and the 1920s. During that period, strong nationalistic undertones in Italy strived to unify its national identity. Recognizing operetta as a foreign genre, operetta was perceived as an art form that would contaminate Italian opera or illegitimately undermine its primacy on

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3488-432: The 1920s and 1930s, Kurt Weill took a more extreme form of the Berlin operetta style and used it in his operas, operettas, and musicals. It is arguable that some of Kurt Weill 's compositions could be considered modernist operetta. The Berlin-style operetta coexisted with more bourgeois, charming, home-loving, and nationalistic German operettas – some of which were called Volksoperetten (folk operettas). A prime example

3597-409: The 1950s with Out of This World (1950), which had some good numbers but too much camp and vulgarity, and was not greatly successful. His next show, Can-Can (1952), featuring " C'est Magnifique " and " It's All Right with Me ", was another hit, running for 892 performances. Porter's last original Broadway production, Silk Stockings (1955), featuring " All of You ", was also successful, with

3706-513: The Beguine ", " I Get a Kick Out of You ", " Well, Did You Evah! ", " I've Got You Under My Skin ", " My Heart Belongs to Daddy " and " You're the Top ". He also composed scores for films from the 1930s to the 1950s, including Born to Dance (1936), which featured the song " You'd Be So Easy to Love "; Rosalie (1937), which featured " In the Still of the Night "; High Society (1956), which included " True Love "; and Les Girls (1957). Porter

3815-446: The Boys (1943), starring Merman, ran for 422 performances, and Mexican Hayride (1944), starring Bobby Clark , with June Havoc , ran for 481 performances. These shows, too, are short of Porter standards. The critics did not pull their punches, complaining about the lack of hit tunes and the generally low standard of the scores. After two flops, Seven Lively Arts (1944) (which featured

3924-523: The Depths (on the Ninetieth Floor) ", and " Ridin' High" . The relative failure of these shows convinced Porter that his songs did not appeal to a broad enough audience. In an interview, he said "Sophisticated allusions are good for about six weeks ... more fun, but only for myself and about eighteen other people, all of whom are first-nighters anyway. Polished, urbane and adult playwriting in the musical field

4033-404: The French operatic stage since the decline of tragédie lyrique . The origins of French operetta began when comic actors would perform dances and songs to crowds of people at fairs on open-air stages. In the beginning of the 18th century these actors began to perform comic parodies of known operas. These performances formed operetta as a casual genre derived from opéra comique , while returning to

4142-495: The Man Today" from the 1950 musical Guys and Dolls mentioned Rogers Peet as one of the better things in life, “respectable, conservative and clean” alongside Reader's Digest , the orchestra leader Guy Lombardo , and Ovaltine . The last Rogers Peet store closed in the mid-1980s. One of their green delivery vehicles can be seen in a street scene in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's . This fashion -related article

4251-461: The Philippines, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States. Through the transfer of operetta among different countries, cultural cosmopolitanism emerged in the previous century. Operetta as a genre lost favor in the 1930s and gave way to modern musical theatre . Important operetta composers include Johann Strauss , Jacques Offenbach , Franz Lehár , and Francisco Alonso . The term operetta arises in

4360-572: The adventures of an immigrant to America who becomes a film star. The work, written for the Ballets suédois , lasts about 16 minutes. It was orchestrated by Charles Koechlin and shared the same opening night as Milhaud 's La création du monde . Porter's work was one of the earliest symphonic jazz-based compositions, predating George Gershwin 's Rhapsody in Blue by four months, and was well received by both French and American reviewers after its premiere at

4469-631: The amputation and spent the remaining six years of his life in relative seclusion, seeing only intimate friends. He continued to live in the Waldorf Towers in New York in his memorabilia-filled apartment. On weekends, he often visited an estate in the Berkshires, and he stayed in California during the summers. Porter died of kidney failure at age 73 on October 15, 1964, in Santa Monica , California. He

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4578-496: The appearance of strong national schools in both nations. By the 1870s, however, Offenbach's popularity declined. The public showed more interest in romantic operettas that showed the "grace and refinement" of the late Romantic period. This included Messager 's operetta Véronique and Louis Ganne 's Les saltimbanques . The 20th century found French operetta even more out of favor as the international public turned to Anglo-American and Viennese operettas, which continued to develop

4687-589: The art form into the late Romantic era. Offenbach was unabashed about spreading operetta around the continent. In 1861, he staged some of his recent works at the Carltheater in Vienna , which paved the way for Austrian and German composers. Soon, Vienna became the epicenter of operetta productions. It is because of the Viennese operetta, not the French, that the term is used to describe a full-length work. Additionally, after

4796-454: The best collections of song numbers I have ever listened to". This saved the show, which ran for 254 performances, considered a successful run at the time. Ray Goetz, producer of Paris and Fifty Million Frenchmen , the success of which had kept him solvent when other producers were bankrupted by the post-crash slump in Broadway business, invited Porter to write a musical show about the other city that he knew and loved: New York. Goetz offered

4905-455: The centuries and ranges depending on each country's history with the genre. It is often used to refer to pieces that resemble the one-act compositions by Offenbach in contrast with his full length compositions, ‘opéra-bouffe’. Offenbach invented this art form in response to the French government's oppressive laws surrounding the stagings of works that were larger than one act or contained more than four characters. Operetta became recognized as

5014-523: The development of both the West End in London and Broadway in New York. American audiences were first introduced to operetta through Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore in 1878 . American operetta composers included Victor Herbert , whose works at the beginning of the 20th century were influenced by both Viennese operetta and Gilbert and Sullivan. He was followed by Sigmund Romberg and Rudolph Friml . Nevertheless, American operetta largely gave way, by

5123-432: The early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate . It won the first Tony Award for Best Musical . Porter's other musicals include Fifty Million Frenchmen , DuBarry Was a Lady , Anything Goes , Can-Can and Silk Stockings . His numerous hit songs include " Night and Day ", " Begin

5232-511: The end of World War I, to musicals , such as the Princess Theatre musicals, and revues , followed by the musicals of Rodgers and Hart , Cole Porter , Irving Berlin and others. Another notable operetta in English is Candide by Leonard Bernstein . It was advertised as a “comic operetta.” Candide’s score in some ways was typical for its announced genre with some waltzes, but Bernstein added

5341-416: The entire Ballets Russes to entertain his guests, and for a party at Ca' Rezzonico , which he rented for $ 4,000 a month ($ 72,000 in current value), he hired 50 gondoliers to act as footmen and had a troupe of tightrope walkers perform in a blaze of lights. In the midst of this extravagant lifestyle, Porter continued to write songs with his wife's encouragement. Porter received few commissions for songs in

5450-608: The film Broadway Melody of 1940 for Fred Astaire, George Murphy and Eleanor Powell . Meanwhile, as political unrest increased in Europe, Porter's wife closed their Paris house in 1939, and the next year bought a country home in the Berkshire mountains , near Williamstown, Massachusetts , which she decorated with elegant furnishings from their Paris home. Porter spent time in Hollywood, New York and Williamstown. Panama Hattie (1940)

5559-688: The following: Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook (1959); Anita O'Day Swings Cole Porter with Billy May (1959); All Through the Night: Julie London Sings the Choicest of Cole Porter (1965); Rosemary Clooney Sings the Music of Cole Porter (1982); Anything Goes: Stephane Grappelli & Yo-Yo Ma Play (Mostly) Cole Porter (1989) and Love for Sale ( Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga , 2021). In 1990 Dionne Warwick released Dionne Sings Cole Porter . In that same year, Red Hot + Blue

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5668-613: The format in England with their long-running collaboration during the Victorian era . With W. S. Gilbert writing the libretti and Sullivan composing the music, the pair produced 14 comic operas, which were later called Savoy Operas . Most were enormously popular in Britain, the U.S., and elsewhere. Gilbert, Sullivan, and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte themselves call their joint works comic operas to distinguish this family-friendly fare from

5777-585: The genre renewed vitality. Studying at the Prague Conservatory Lehár began as a theatre violinist and then took off as a composer in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During this 1905, Lehár's Die lustige Witwe ( The Merry Widow ) paved a pathway for composers such as Fall , Oscar Straus , and Kálmán to continue the tradition of Operetta. Lehár was also one of the first composers who began to incorporate into film. [2] The Viennese tradition

5886-605: The halftime show of the 1991 Orange Bowl . Joel Grey and a large cast of singers, dancers and marching bands, performed a tribute to Porter in Miami, Florida during the 57th King Orange Jamboree parade, whose theme was "Anything Goes". The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performed a program of Cole Porter music at the Circle Theatre in Indianapolis , which also featured clips of Porter's Hollywood films. "A Gala Birthday Concert"

5995-484: The mid-eighteenth-century Italy and it is first acknowledged as an independent genre in Paris around 1850. Castil-Blaze 's Dictionnaire de la musique moderne claims that this term has a long history and that Mozart was one of the first people to use the word operetta, disparagingly, describing operettas as "certain dramatic abortions, those miniature compositions in which one finds only cold songs and couplets from vaudeville". The definition of operetta has changed over

6104-413: The most performed operetta in the world, and remains his most popular stage work. In all, Strauss wrote 16 operettas and one opera, most with great success when first premiered. Strauss's satire was often generic, unlike Offenbach who commented on real-life matters. Strauss's operettas, waltzes, polkas, and marches often have a strongly Viennese style, and his popularity causes many to think of him as

6213-467: The movie environment, and Porter's closeted homosexual acts, formerly very discreet, became less so; she retreated to their Paris house. When his film assignment on Rosalie was finished in 1937, Porter hastened to Paris to make peace with Linda, but she remained cool. After a walking tour of Europe with his friends, Porter returned to New York in October 1937 without her. They were soon reunited by an accident Porter suffered. On October 24, 1937, Porter

6322-452: The music of several songs to the musical A Night Out . Marriage did not diminish Porter's taste for extravagant luxury. The Porter home on the rue Monsieur near Les Invalides was a palatial house with platinum wallpaper and chairs upholstered in zebra skin. In 1923, Porter came into an inheritance from his grandfather, and the Porters began living in rented palaces in Venice. He once hired

6431-466: The musical Paris , his first hit. It was commissioned by E. Ray Goetz at the instigation of Goetz's wife and the show's star, Irène Bordoni . She had wanted Rodgers and Hart to write the songs, but they were unavailable, and Porter's agent persuaded Goetz to hire Porter instead. In August 1928, Porter's work on the show was interrupted by the death of his father. He hurried back to Indiana to comfort his mother before returning to work. The songs for

6540-569: The national composer of Austria. The Theater an der Wien never failed to draw huge crowds when his stage works were first performed. After many of the numbers the audience would call noisily for encores. Franz von Suppé , also known as Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo, Cavaliere Suppé-Demelli, was born in 1819 and his fame rivals that of Offenbach. Suppé was a leading composer and conductor in Vienna and most known for his operetta Leichte Kavallerie (1866), Fatinitza (1876), and Boccaccio (1879). Suppé

6649-425: The newer musicals, with each influencing the other. The distinctive traits of operetta are found in the musical theatre works of Jerome Kern , Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim . Operetta was first created in Paris, France in the middle of the 19th century in order to satisfy a need for short, light works in contrast to the full-length entertainment of the increasingly serious opéra comique . By this time,

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6758-426: The original score, but his songs were gradually dropped during the Broadway run, and by the time of the post-Broadway tour in 1925, all his numbers had been deleted. Frustrated by the public response to most of his work, Porter nearly gave up songwriting as a career, although he continued to compose songs for friends and perform at private parties. At the age of 36, Porter reintroduced himself to Broadway in 1928 with

6867-444: The principal characters, as well as the chorus, are called upon to dance, although the music is largely derived from 19th-century operatic styles, with an emphasis on singable melodies. Operetta in the twentieth century is more complex and reached its pinnacle in Austria and Germany. Operetta is a precursor of the modern musical theatre or the "musical". In the early decades of the 20th century, operetta continued to exist alongside

6976-563: The procedure. Linda rushed from Paris to be with him, and supported him in his refusal of amputation. He remained in the hospital for seven months before being allowed to go home to his apartment at the Waldorf Towers . He resumed work as soon as he could, finding it took his mind off his perpetual pain. Porter's first show after his accident was not a success. You Never Know (1938), starring Clifton Webb , Lupe Vélez and Libby Holman , ran for only 78 performances. The score included

7085-598: The risqué French operettas of the 1850s and 1860s. Their works, such as H.M.S. Pinafore , The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado , continue to enjoy regular performances throughout the English-speaking world. While many of these operas seem to be very light-hearted, works such as the Mikado were making political commentaries on the British government and military with one of the main topics being capital punishment which

7194-419: The schottische, gavotte, and other dances, and also entered the opera house with the aria “Glitter and Be Gay” Operetta was the first imported vocal genre in Italy. Since the 1860s, French and Viennese composers such as Offenbach , Hervé , Suppé , Strauss Jr and Lehár have significantly influenced the operatic tradition of Italy. The widespread popularity of foreign operetta in Italy reached its climax at

7303-533: The show included " Let's Misbehave " and one of his best-known list songs , " Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love ", which was introduced by Bordoni and Arthur Margetson . The show opened on Broadway on October 8, 1928. The Porters did not attend the first night because Porter was in Paris supervising another show for which he had been commissioned, La Revue , at a nightclub. This was also a success, and, in Citron's phrase, Porter

7412-496: The show ran for a profitable 248 performances, and the rights to the film, retitled The Gay Divorcee , were sold to RKO Pictures . Porter followed this with a West End show for Gertrude Lawrence, Nymph Errant (1933), presented by Cochran at the Adelphi Theatre , where it ran for 154 performances. Among the hit songs Porter composed for the show were "Experiment" and "The Physician" for Lawrence, and "Solomon" for Elisabeth Welch. In 1934, producer Vinton Freedley came up with

7521-403: The songs "From Alpha to Omega" and " At Long Last Love ". He returned to success with Leave It to Me! (1938); the show introduced Mary Martin , singing " My Heart Belongs to Daddy ", and other numbers included "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" and "From Now On". Porter's last show of the 1930s was DuBarry Was a Lady (1939), a particularly risqué show starring Merman and Bert Lahr . After

7630-400: The songs as "pleasant" and "not an outstanding hit song in the show". As it was a lavish and expensive production, nothing less than full houses would suffice, and after only three weeks, the producers announced that they would close it. Irving Berlin , who admired and championed Porter, took out a paid press advertisement calling the show "The best musical comedy I've heard in years. ... One of

7739-421: The songs from Fifty Million Frenchmen . Porter also composed the cowboy song " Don't Fence Me In " for Adios, Argentina , an unproduced movie, in 1934, but it did not become a hit until Roy Rogers sang it in the 1944 film Hollywood Canteen . Bing Crosby , The Andrews Sisters , and other artists also popularized it in the 1940s. The Porters moved to Hollywood in December 1935, but Porter's wife did not like

7848-481: The songs, he decided on Porter. By telling each of these that he had already signed the others, Freedley gathered his ideal team together. A drastic last-minute rewrite was necessitated by a major shipping accident that dominated the news and made Bolton and Wodehouse's book seem tasteless. Nevertheless, the show, Anything Goes , was an immediate hit. Porter wrote what many consider his greatest score of this period. The New Yorker magazine's review said, "Mr. Porter

7957-477: The standard " Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye ") and Around the World (1946), many thought that Porter's best period was over. Between Broadway musicals, Porter continued to write for Hollywood. His film scores of this period were You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Astaire and Rita Hayworth , Something to Shout About (1943) with Don Ameche , Janet Blair and William Gaxton, and Mississippi Belle (1943–44), which

8066-417: The team with whom Porter had last worked: Herbert Fields writing the book and Porter's old friend Monty Woolley directing. The New Yorkers (1930) acquired instant notoriety for including a song about a streetwalker , " Love for Sale ". Originally performed by Kathryn Crawford in a street setting, critical disapproval led Goetz to reassign the number to Elisabeth Welch in a nightclub scene. The lyric

8175-799: The town with his classmates, before returning to New Haven , Connecticut, early in the morning. He also wrote musical comedy scores for his fraternity, the Yale Dramatic Association , and as a student at Harvard – Cora (1911), And the Villain Still Pursued Her (1912), The Pot of Gold (1912), The Kaleidoscope (1913) and Paranoia (1914) – which helped prepare him for a career as a Broadway and Hollywood composer and lyricist. After graduating from Yale, Porter enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1913, where he roomed with future Secretary of State Dean Acheson . He soon felt that he

8284-576: The troops in their bivouacs ." Another account, given by Porter, is that he joined the recruiting department of the American Aviation Headquarters, but, according to his biographer Stephen Citron , there is no record of his joining this or any other branch of the forces. Porter maintained a luxury apartment in Paris, where he entertained lavishly. His parties were extravagant and scandalous, with "much gay and bisexual activity, Italian nobility, cross-dressing , international musicians and

8393-720: The turn of the century, in particular with the success of La vedova allegra , which premiered in Milan in 1907. Italian operetta composers tended to stretch the definition of an "operetta" more than other nations in order to fit the beauty of Italian Romantic opera style. An example would be Giacomo Puccini , who developed his work in the realistic verisimo style, and would compose "operettas in three acts". Other notable composers of Italian operetta include Vincenzo Valente , Ruggero Leoncavallo , Pasquale Mario Costa , Pietro Mascagni , Carlo Lombardo , Enrico Toselli , Virgilio Ranzato and Giuseppe Pietri . The audiences of operetta during

8502-454: The violin at age six, the piano at eight, and wrote his first operetta (with help from his mother) at ten. She falsified his recorded birth year, changing it from 1891 to 1893 to make him appear more precocious. His father, a shy and unassertive man, played a lesser role in Porter's upbringing, although as an amateur poet, he may have influenced his son's gifts for rhyme and meter. Porter's father

8611-523: The years immediately after his marriage. He had the occasional number interpolated into other writers' revues in Britain and the U.S. For a C. B. Cochran show in 1921, he had two successes with the comedy numbers "The Blue Boy Blues" and "Olga, Come Back to the Volga". In 1923, in collaboration with Gerald Murphy , he composed a short ballet, originally titled Landed and then Within the Quota , satirically depicting

8720-494: Was mutually advantageous for them to marry. For Linda, it offered continued social status and a partner who was the antithesis of her abusive first husband. For Porter, it brought a respectable heterosexual front in an era when homosexuality was not publicly acknowledged. They were, moreover, genuinely devoted to each other and remained married from December 19, 1919, until her death in 1954. Linda remained protective of her social position and, believing that classical music might be

8829-424: Was Porter's longest-running hit so far, running in New York for 501 performances despite the absence of any enduring Porter songs. It starred Merman, Arthur Treacher and Betty Hutton . Let's Face It! (1941), starring Danny Kaye , had an even better run, with 547 performances in New York. This, too, lacked any numbers that became standards, and Porter always counted it among his lesser efforts. Something for

8938-512: Was a contemporary to Strauss and composed over 30 operettas 180 farces, ballets and other stage works. Recently, though most of his works have been fallen into obscurity, many of them have been reprised within films, cartoons, advertisements and so on. Both Strauss and Suppé are considered to be the most notable composers of the Golden Age of Viennese operetta. Following the death of Johann Strauss and his contemporary, Franz von Suppé , Franz Lehár

9047-504: Was a singer, composer, librettist, conductor, and scene painter. In 1842, he wrote the one act opérette , L'Ours et le pacha , based on the popular vaudeville by Eugène Scribe and X. B. Saintine . In 1848, Hervé made his first notable appearance on the Parisian stage, with Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança (after Cervantes ), which can be considered the starting point for the new French musical theatre tradition. Hervé's most famous works are

9156-556: Was abandoned before filming began. He also cooperated in the making of the film Night and Day (1946), a largely fictional biography of Porter, with Cary Grant implausibly cast in the lead. The critics scoffed, but the film was a huge success, chiefly because of the wealth of vintage Porter numbers in it. The biopic's success contrasted starkly with the failure of Vincente Minnelli 's film The Pirate (1948), with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly , in which five new Porter songs received little attention. From this low spot, Porter made

9265-518: Was also a talented singer and pianist, but the father-son relationship was not close. J. O. Cole wanted his grandson to become a lawyer, and with that in mind, sent him to Worcester Academy in Massachusetts in 1905. Porter brought an upright piano with him to school and found that music, and his ability to entertain, made it easy for him to make friends. Porter did well in school and rarely came home to visit. He became class valedictorian and

9374-515: Was an unforeseen theatrical development. Notable German operetta composers include Paul Lincke , Eduard Künneke , Walter Kollo , Jean Gilbert , Leon Jessel , Rudolf Dellinger , Walter Goetze and Ludwig Schmidseder . Offenbach's influence reached England by the 1860s. Arthur Sullivan , of the Gilbert and Sullivan duo, composed Cox and Box (1866) as a direct reaction to Offenbach's Les deux aveugles (1855). Gilbert and Sullivan solidified

9483-411: Was badly affected by the 1929 Wall Street crash , and the production ran for only 136 performances. From Porter's point of view, it was nonetheless a success, as his song " What Is This Thing Called Love? " became immensely popular. Porter's new fame brought him offers from Hollywood , but because his score for Paramount 's The Battle of Paris was undistinguished, and its star, Gertrude Lawrence ,

9592-693: Was born in Peru, Indiana , on June 9, 1891, the only surviving child of a wealthy family. His father, Samuel Fenwick Porter, was a pharmacist by trade. His mother, Kate, was the indulged daughter of James Omar "J. O." Cole, "the richest man in Indiana", a coal and timber speculator who dominated the family. J. O. Cole built the couple a house on his Peru-area property, known as Westleigh Farms. After high school, Porter returned to his childhood home only for occasional visits. Porter's strong-willed mother doted on him and began his musical training at an early age. He learned

9701-552: Was by far the most successful. It became the first repertory operetta and was staged hundreds of times across Europe and beyond. Offenbach's legacy is seen in operettas throughout the late 19th century and beyond by encouraging Strauss the Younger to bring the genre to Austria-Hungary. Offenbach also traveled to the US and England educating musicians on the more than 100 operettas he wrote during his lifetime. This international travel resulted in

9810-537: Was carried on by Oscar Straus , Carl Zeller , Karl Millöcker , Leo Fall , Richard Heuberger , Edmund Eysler , Ralph Benatzky , Robert Stolz , Leo Ascher , Emmerich Kálmán , Nico Dostal , Fred Raymond , Igo Hofstetter , Paul Abraham and Ivo Tijardović in the 20th century. In the same way that Vienna was the center of Austrian operetta, Berlin was the center of German operetta. Berlin operetta often had its own style, including, especially after World War I , elements of jazz and other syncopated dance rhythms,

9919-530: Was considered too explicit for radio at the time, though it was recorded and aired as an instrumental and rapidly became a standard. Porter often referred to it as his favorite of his songs. The New Yorkers also included the hit " I Happen to Like New York ". Next came Fred Astaire 's last stage show, Gay Divorce (1932). It featured a hit that became Porter's best-known song, " Night and Day ". Despite mixed press (some critics were reluctant to accept Astaire without his previous partner, his sister Adele ),

10028-589: Was currently playing every evening in Europe in nine languages. In the USA, five companies were presenting it, and "the rush for tickets at the New Amsterdam Theatre" was likened to "the feverish crowding round the doors of a threatened bank". Stan Czech, in his Lehár biography, claims that by 1910 it had been performed "around 18,000 times in ten languages on 154 American, 142 German, and 135 British stages". The international embrace of operetta directly correlated with

10137-736: Was dedicated to Porter. In December 2010, his portrait was added to the Hoosier Heritage Gallery in the office of the Governor of Indiana . Numerous symphony orchestras have paid tribute to Porter in the years since his death including Seattle Symphony Orchestra , with Marvin Hamlisch as conductor and the Boston Pops , both in 2011. In 2012, Marvin Hamlisch, Michael Feinstein, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra honored Porter with

10246-653: Was designed to entertain the public". Two other French composers, Robert Planquette and Charles Lecocq , followed Offenbach's model and wrote the operettas Les Cloches de Corneville ( The Bells of Normandy ) and La Fille de Madame Angot ( The Daughter of Madame Angot ). The two operettas were considered a major hit. The political limitations placed on Offenbach and Parisian theatre were gradually lifted, and operetta gained wide popularity. While Offenbach's earliest one-act pieces included Les deux aveugles , Le violoneux and Ba-ta-clan (all 1855) did well, his first full-length operetta, Orphée aux enfers (1858),

10355-469: Was elected president of the Yale Glee Club and was its principal soloist. Porter wrote 300 songs while at Yale, including student songs such as the football fight songs "Bulldog" and "Bingo Eli Yale" (aka "Bingo, That's The Lingo!") that are still played at Yale. During college, Porter became acquainted with New York City's vibrant nightlife, taking the train there for dinner, theater, and nights on

10464-460: Was finally "accepted into the upper echelon of Broadway songwriters". Cochran now wanted more from Porter than isolated extra songs; he planned a West End extravaganza similar to Ziegfeld 's shows, with a Porter score and a large international cast led by Jessie Matthews , Sonnie Hale and Tilly Losch . The revue, Wake Up and Dream , ran for 263 performances in London, after which Cochran transferred it to New York in 1929. On Broadway, business

10573-611: Was for the CBS television special Aladdin (1958). Porter's mother died in 1952, and his wife died of emphysema in 1954. By 1958, Porter's injuries caused a series of ulcers on his right leg. After 34 operations, it had to be amputated and replaced with an artificial limb. His friend Noël Coward visited him in the hospital and wrote in his diary, "The lines of ceaseless pain have been wiped from his face...I am convinced that his whole life will cheer up and that his work will profit accordingly." In fact, Porter never wrote another song after

10682-508: Was held at New York City's Carnegie Hall , with more than 40 entertainers and friends paying tribute to Porter's long career in theater and film. In addition, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Porter's birth. The Indiana University Opera performed Porter's musical, Jubilee , in Bloomington, Indiana . In May 2007, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

10791-553: Was honored with a plaque on the Legacy Walk in Chicago, which celebrates LGBT achievers. Shows listed are stage musicals unless otherwise noted. Where the show was later made into a film, the year refers to the stage version. A complete list of Porter's works is in the Library of Congress in its Cole Porter Collection. Operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and

10900-593: Was miscast, the film was not a success. Citron expresses the view that Porter was not interested in cinema and "noticeably wrote down for the movies." Still on a Gallic theme, Porter's last Broadway show of the 1920s was Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929), for which he wrote 28 numbers, including " You Do Something to Me ", "You've Got That Thing" and "The Tale of the Oyster". The show received mixed notices. One critic wrote, "the lyrics alone are enough to drive anyone but P. G. Wodehouse into retirement", but others dismissed

11009-484: Was not destined to be a lawyer, and, at the suggestion of the dean of the law school, switched to Harvard's music department, where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Pietro Yon . His mother did not object to this move, but it was kept secret from J. O. Cole. In 1915, Porter's first song on Broadway , "Esmeralda", appeared in the revue Hands Up . The quick success was immediately followed by failure: his first Broadway production, in 1916, See America First ,

11118-420: Was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett and Hans Spialek . Now at the height of his success, Porter was able to enjoy the opening night of his musicals; he made grand entrances and sat in front, apparently relishing the show as much as any audience member. Russel Crouse commented "Cole's opening-night behaviour is as indecent as that of a bridegroom who has a good time at his own wedding." Anything Goes

11227-566: Was released as a benefit CD for AIDS research and featured 20 Cole Porter songs recorded by artists such as U2 and Annie Lennox . Additional recording collections include Frank Sinatra Sings the Select Cole Porter (1996) and John Barrowman Swings Cole Porter (2004); Barrowman played "Jack" in the 2004 film De-Lovely . Other singers who have paid tribute to Porter include the Swedish pop music group Gyllene Tider , which recorded

11336-520: Was rewarded by his grandfather with a tour of France, Switzerland and Germany. Entering Yale College in 1909, Porter majored in English, minored in music, and also studied French. He was a member of Scroll and Key and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and contributed to campus humor magazine The Yale Record . He was an early member of the Whiffenpoofs a cappella singing group and participated in several other music clubs; in his senior year, he

11445-455: Was riding with Countess Edith di Zoppola and Duke Fulco di Verdura at Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, New York , when his horse rolled on him and crushed his legs, leaving him substantially crippled and in constant pain for the rest of his life. Though doctors told Porter's wife and mother that his right leg would have to be amputated, and possibly the left one as well, he refused to have

11554-552: Was so successful that it led to the elongation of these sketches into an evening's duration. However, Offenbach's productions were bound by the police prefecture in Paris, which specified the type of performance that would be allowed: "pantomimes with at most five performers, one-act comic musical dialogues for two to three actors, and dance routines with no more than five dancers; choruses were strictly forbidden." These rules defined what came to be defined as operetta: "a small unpretentious operatic work that had no tragic implications and

11663-738: Was still widely used at the time. English operetta continued into the 1890s, with works by composers such as Edward German , Ivan Caryll and Sidney Jones . These quickly evolved into the lighter song-and-dance pieces known as Edwardian musical comedy . Beginning in 1907, with The Merry Widow , many of the Viennese operettas were adapted very successfully for the English stage. To explain this phenomenon, Derek Scott writes, In January 1908, London’s Daily Mail claimed that The Merry Widow had been performed 450 times in Vienna, 400 times in Berlin, 350 times in St Petersburg, 300 times in Copenhagen, and

11772-542: Was the first of five Porter shows featuring Merman. He loved her loud, brassy voice and wrote many numbers that displayed her strengths. Jubilee (1935), written with Moss Hart while on a cruise around the world, was not a major hit, running for only 169 performances, but it featured two songs that have since become standards, " Begin the Beguine " and " Just One of Those Things ". Red, Hot and Blue (1936), featuring Merman, Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope , ran for 183 performances and introduced " It's De-Lovely ", " Down in

11881-462: Was the heir apparent. Lehar is widely considered the leading operetta composer of the 20th century and his most successful operetta, Die lustige Witwe ( The Merry Widow ), is one of the classic operettas still in repertory. Lehár assisted in leading operetta into the Silver Age of Viennese Operetta. During this time, Viennese Censorship laws were changed in 1919. Lehár is most responsible for giving

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