Harbinger Records

AVAILABLE TODAY - VICTOR HERBERT'S NAUGHTY MARIETTA
ON CD FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Harbinger Records is pleased to announce the reissue—for the first time on CD—of the Smithsonian Institution Archives' 1981 recording of Naughty Marietta, starring Judith Blazer and Leslie Harrington and conducted by James R. Morris.

Composer Victor Herbert’s greatest achievement was this beloved classic of American operetta, first produced on Broadway in 1910. The tale of an Italian countess who stows away on a ship to New Orleans, where she falls in love with a frontiersman, it was adapted multiples times—most notably for the 1935 film with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy and a 1955 live telecast with Patrice Munsel and Alfred Drake—but these adaptations played fast and loose with Naughty Marietta’s story and music.

In 1981, the Smithsonian’s American Musical Theater series produced the first studio recording of the complete score of Naughty Marietta following semi-staged performances of the operetta at Baird Auditorium, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in D.C., giving fans the opportunity to hear it exactly as it was written by Herbert and librettist-lyricist Rida Johnson Young.

“All the flavor and excitement of the work have been captured alive,” wrote Washington Post arts critic Octavio Roca. “Blazer is magnificent in the title role. She is a crystal-clear lyric soprano. Her Marietta is sexy. Her comic timing is the best, her naughtiness always tongue in cheek. Here was a star the audience would have gladly listened to all night.”

Now, with Harbinger’s reissue of this historic recording, you can listen all night to such beautiful, haunting songs as “’Neath the Southern Moon,” “Italian Street Song,” “Live for Today,” “I’m Falling in Love With Someone” and “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life.”

This CD, produced by Ken Bloom and Dwight Blocker Bowers, includes a 20-page booklet with extensive essays and color photos, plus an interview with Judy Blazer.

Hear a sneak peek of "Italian Street Song" on our website https://www.musicaltheaterproject.org/naughtymariettahcd3702
then buy a copy on Amazon for your collection: https://amzn.to/3bxssVM

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT "SHUFFLE ALONG"?

100 years ago, this groundbreaking show by an all-Black creative team introduced Jazz to Broadway and changed the face of the American musical forever. "Shuffle Along" was as revolutionary and impactful in its day as Hamilton has been in ours. Read more about it here... https://www.npr.org/2021/05/23/998962830/shuffle-along-changed-musical-theater-100-years-ago
..then take a listen to the ONLY available archival recording of this groundbreaking musical, put out by Harbinger Records, which also won the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Album Notes!

https://www.musicaltheaterproject.org/sissle--blake-sing-shuffle-along.html