Theater: Mlle. Modiste
Music by Victor Herbert; Book and Lyrics by Henry Blossom
My impression of the libretti to Victor Herbert’s operettas is that they are dull and stilted. One definitely goes to a Victor Herbert operetta for the music. That said, OLO handles the music and singing nicely, and muddles through the libretto as well as can be expected, with performers breathing as much life into their characters as may be found in the script. As this is such a rarely performed show, we may hope for a CD of it next year.
The plot concerns a sales girl named Fifi in a hat shop, in Paris in the 1880s. She longs to be a singer, if only she had 5000 francs to make it happen. A rich male customer believes in her, gives her the money, and she’s a great success. There’s a romantic interest too; she agrees to marry only when her beau’s uncle, who scoffed at her as a hat girl, begs her to marry his nephew. She gets the best of the uncle by performing for him under a pseudonym and charging top dollar, while she would’ve been willing to perform for free if he’d asked her. In the end she gets her way and the nephew.
Reading a commentary on Nicholas Nickleby shed a new light on this plot. It noted that in Victorian England “millinery shop assistant” was viewed as code for “prostitute.” Well, this is 40 years later and in Paris rather than London; and it was written for 1905 New York audiences, but one wonders.
Here’s a little more about the plot. The customer who gives Fifi the 5000 francs does not of course just hand her the money. She could hardly accept it under those circumstances - she’d look and feel like a call girl. So the customer uses the ruse of buying an expensive hat for an unspecified lady; unbeknownst to Fifi, he slips the 5000 francs into the box. He tells Fifi to deliver the box, without telling her whom it’s for (the address is inside), and then leaves. In the plot, Fifi finds the cash, accepts it, and pays it back after she’s a success.
But as she’s about to deliver the box, the rich customer’s wife walks into the hat shop. I was sure she was going to ask about the delivery, discover it was intended for Fifi herself, and then find the 5000 francs. Fifi would’ve spent the rest of the show proclaiming her innocence while looking like an expensive hooker. Now that would’ve been a plot!
Why don’t operetta librettists think of these things?