Friml's calling

SynopsisImagine a crisp, blue Northern sky, a Canadian Mountie in a bright red tunic, and — what else? — an elaborately coiffed operatic soprano singing in the middle of the woods. Yes, it was on today’s date in 1924, at the Imperial Theater in New York that “Indian Love Call” was first heard in Rose-Marie, a musical written by American composer of Bohemian birth named Rudolf Friml.This one-time Dvořák pupil was born in Prague in 1879. He scored such a hit when he debuted his own Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall in 1904 that he decided to make America his home. His early years as an American composer were disappointing, but in 1912, The Firefly, his first musical, proved a hit.Friml followed that with a string of increasingly popular Broadway shows, including Rose-Marie in 1924 and The Vagabond King in 1925, but by the mid-1930s Friml’s old-world musical style was judged too old-fashioned for the hip New York of George Gershwin and Cole Porter. Ironically, it was just then that Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald films based on Friml musicals broke box office records. These campy films are now treasured precisely for their sweet, if rather affected, “period” flavor. Music Played in Today's ProgramRudolf Friml (1879-1972): Indian Love Call from Rose Marie; Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, vocalists; Pro Arte 491