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Version 1

Three Musketeers (The) (Friml) (1928-03-Lyric Theatre-Broadway)

Type de série: Original
Théâtre: Lyric Theatre (Broadway - Etats-Unis)
Durée : 9 mois 1 semaine
Nombre : 318 représentations
Première Preview : 13 March 1928
Première: 13 March 1928
Dernière: 15 December 1928
Mise en scène : William Anthony McGuire •
Chorégraphie :
Producteur :
Star(s) :
Avec: Robert D. Burns (Sergeant Jussac), Louis Hector (Comte de la Rochefort), Harrison Brockbank (Innkeeper), Naomi Johnson (Zoe), Vivienne Osborne (Lady De Winter), Detmar Poppen (Porthos), Douglass R. Dumbrille (Athos), Joseph Macaulay (Aramis), Vivienne Segal (Constance Bonacieux), Lester Allen (Planchet), Dennis King (D’Artagnan), John Clarke (The Duke of Buckingham), Yvonne D’Arle (Queen Anne), John Kline (M. de Treville), Reginald Owen (Cardinal Richelieu), Clarence Derwent (Louis XIII), William Kershaw (Brother Joseph), Harriet Hoctor (Premiere Danseuse of the Court), Catherine Hayes (Aubergiste), Richard Thornton (The Bo’sun), Raymond O’Brien (Patrick); Cardinal’s Guards: Andy Jochim and Randolph Leyman; Ladies in Waiting: Evelyn Groves, Lee Russell, Gertrude Williams, Mary McDonald, Pirkko Ahlquist, Marion Dodge, and Edna Bunte; Gerald Moore (King’s Attendant) The Albertina Rasch Dancers: Virginia Beardsley, Dona Desne Curry, Rose Gale, Eva Hellesnes, Marguerite Eisele, Nora Puntin, Louise Raymond, Yvonne Beaupre, Regina Tushinsky, Nona Otero, Lydia Krushinsky, Lucille O’Connor, Wilma Kaye, Helen Derby, Jeanette Bradley, Mildred Turner; Ladies of the Ensemble: Nancy Corrigan, Lillian White, Pauline Hall, Vida Hanna, Eleanor Buffington, Marie Merrifield, Julia Lane, Esther Peters, Sylvia Derby, Margaret Clarke, Byrdetta Evans, Eleanor Little, Emily Hadley, Libby Hanley, Ivy Palmer, Marye Bern, Frances Kelley, Lotta Marcy, Ann Moss, Helen Withers, Elaine Lank, Katherine Cavelli, Audrey Davis, Sally Hadley, Ellen Moray, Joan Marren, Hilda Steiner, Elsie Reign, Dorothy Greenley, Miriam Stockton, Dorothy Sutton, Margaret Valient; Gentlemen of the Ensemble: Martin Sheppard, A. Muzzi, Glen McCauley, John Zak, Ernest Ehler, Harry James, William Dillon, Armand Van Mueller, William Hagen, Robert Shields, Norman Ives, Stanley Howard, Charles Kirby, L. Dumbadse, Ivan Ismailov, Serge Vino
Presse : J. Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times said the operetta was “lavishly” mounted in Ziegfeld’s “bounteous style” and was “a matchless achievement in design and expression.” William Anthony McGuire’s “excellent libretto” created “bold” characters engaged in “drinking, loving and fighting in the service of royalty,” and the story was complemented by Friml’s “rushing” and “captivating” score. Those who had read Dumas’s novel would find the evening “vivid, ebullient and bubbling,” and already some were dubbing the new work a “grand operetta.” As for King, he sang and acted in “the grand manner.” Charles Brackett in the New Yorker noted that King acquitted himself “with grace” but seemed “a trifle orchidaceous in comparison with the Fairbanks interpretation of the character” (Douglas Fairbanks had starred in a 1921 silent film adaptation). Otherwise, the décor was “lavish,” the Albertina Rasch dancers possessed “hypnotic grace,” and Friml had composed a “good, thick, rambunctious score.” Mary Ann Miller in the Indianapolis Star said the score was “rousing” and the libretto “worthy of Dumas’ swashbuckling novel.” The work was “a most skillfully artistic production, directed with a fine discernment and acted as a spirited and humorous romance.” Arthur Pollock in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle singled out “Ma Belle” and “(March of the) Musketeers” as the score’s best songs, and suggested the evening would have been better served had it been shorter. Further, the book was somewhat austere and needed to be “a little louder, more hilarious, gustier—something looser, more pungent, racier and red-eyed.” As a result, the production “just misse[d] being good enough to go on until midnight.” Time summed up the plot by noting that D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers spend their time “serving the King of France” and “making love to ladies.” The chorus girls “capered” about the stage dressed in “wide skirts and bonnets,” and if “equipped with dusters” they’d “look as if they had just jumped out of a can of glorified Dutch Cleanser.” Percy Hammond in the Pittsburgh Press praised the “melodious” score and said King had “the voice of a nightingale, the shape of Apollo, the charm of Laurette Taylor, the valor of a U.S. Marine, the punch of Eugene Tunney, and the impishness of Puck.” During the run, four songs were cut, “My Sword (and I),” “Te Deum,” “Heart of Mine,” and “Until We Say Goodbye,” and three were added, “Every Little While,” “Your Eyes,” and “Gascony” (aka “Gascony Song” and “Gascony Bred”). Dropped during the tryout were “One Smile from You,” “Shipmates All,” “Noah,” and “Near You.”

Version 2

Three Musketeers (The) (Friml) (1930-11-Broadway Theatre-Broadway)

Type de série: Original London
Théâtre: Drury Lane Theatre (Londres - Angleterre)
Durée : 7 mois
Nombre : 242 représentations
Première Preview : 28 March 1930
Première: 28 March 1930
Dernière: 25 October 1930
Mise en scène : Alexander Leftwich •
Chorégraphie :
Producteur :
Star(s) :

Version 3

Three Musketeers (The) (Friml) (1984-11-Broadway Theatre-Broadway)

Type de série: Revival
Théâtre: Broadway Theatre (Broadway - Etats-Unis)
Durée : 30 ans 2 semaines
Nombre : 11 représentations
Première Preview : 26 October 1984
Première: 11 November 1954
Dernière: 18 November 1984
Mise en scène : Tom O'Horgan • Joe Layton •
Chorégraphie :
Producteur :
Star(s) :
Avec: Michael Praed (D’Artagnan), Liz Callaway (Constance), Chuck Wagner (Athos), Brent Spiner (Aramis), Ron Taylor (Porthos), Ed Dixon, Joseph Kolinsky, Marianne Tatum, et Viva Salno.
Presse : "The Three Musketeers is a good-natured attempt to jazz up Rudolf Friml's Dumas-inspired operetta ... much as the New York Shakespeare Festival retooled The Pirates of Penzance a few seasons ago. But this time the source material is many rungs below Gilbert and Sullivan – and the new accouterments add no wit, style, sexiness or show-biz dazzle. ... Mark Bramble['s]... idea of writing a musical book ... is to minimize the book. The baroque plot of The Three Musketeers is so frenetically and confusingly conveyed that no child is likely to understand who the Duke of Buckingham is, or why Cardinal Richelieu is such a pill, or why everyone is chasing after a diamond brooch throughout Act II. ... The title characters ... often seem like interchangeable stand-ins for the Three Stooges. ... Joe Layton has tried to give the show the illusion of excitement by staging it at a frantic pace and by sending the actors running up and down the aisles ... [but] everyone seems to be scurrying pointlessly about just to keep busy. After a while, the company begins to look like a road troupe of Camelot on amphetamines." The New York Times, Frank Rich