MARIO LANZA - SERENADE (FROM THE STUDENT PRINCE)

SERENADE (FROM THE STUDENT PRINCE)

MARIO LANZA

SONGWRITERS: SIGMUND ROMBERG & DOROTHY DONELLY

COUNTRY: ITALY

FROM THE BROADWAY OPERETTA:"THE STUDENT PRINCE" (1924)

ALBUM: STUDENT PRINCE

LABEL: RCA VICTOR RED SEAL

GENRE: OPERETTA

YEAR: 1954

The Student Prince is na operetta in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play Old Heidelberg. The piece has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works. The plot is mostly faithful to its source.

It opened on December 2, 1924, at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre on Broadway. The show was the most successful of Romberg's works, running for 608 performances, the longest-running Broadway show of the 1920s. It was staged by J. C. Huffman. Even the classic Show Boat, the most enduring musical of the 1920s, did not play as long – it ran for 572 performances. "Drinking Song", with its rousing chorus of "Drink! Drink! Drink!" was especially popular with theatergoers in 1924, as the United States was in the midst of Prohibition. The operetta contains the challenging tenor aria "The Serenade" ("Overhead the moon is beaming").

Ernst Lubitsch made a silent film also based on Förster's work, titled The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, starring Ramón Novarro and Norma Shearer. Its orchestral score did not use any of Romberg's score, although it did include Gaudeamus Igitur. The operetta was revived twice on Broadway – once in 1931 and again in 1943. Mario Lanza's performance on the soundtrack of the 1954 MGM film The Student Prince, renewed the popularity of many of the songs. Composer Nicholas Brodszky and lyricist Paul Francis Webster wrote three new songs for the film. Two of these songs – "I'll Walk with God" and "Beloved", as well as "Serenade" – became closely associated with Lanza, although the role was played on screen by British actor Edmund Purdom, who mimed to Lanza's recordings. The operetta was revived in the 1970s and 1980s by the Light Opera of Manhattan and in 1988 by New York City Opera. The operetta has been performed each summer at the Heidelberg Castle Festival since 1974

Overhead, the moon is beaming

White as blossoms on the bough

Nothing is heard but the song of a bird

Filling all the air with dreaming

Would my heart but still it's beating

Only you can tell it how, beloved

From your window give me greeting

Hear my eternal vow

Soft in the trees lies the echo of my longing

While all around you my dreams of rapture throng My soul, my joy, my hope, my fear

Your heart must tell you that I am near

List from above while I pour out my love

For you know through my life you are love'd

Oh, hear my longing cry, oh, love me or I die

Overhead, the moon is beaming

White as blossoms on the bough

Nothing is heard but the song of a bird

Filling all the air with dreaming

Would my heart but still it's beating

Only you can tell it how, beloved

From your window give me greeting

I swear my eternal love