The Dollar Princess

Vienna once exported a type of musical comedy which brought the world much pleasure and had many virtues. Realism was not one of the virtues. Yet in the whirl of ravishing gypsies disguised as archdukes and ravishing archdukes disguised as gypsies there usually appeared a suggestion, not of life, but of how a generation thought life ought to be.

Such an operetta was The Dollar Princess (1907) which, sensitive to the march of history, turned its back on gypsies and archdukes and instead examined the American millionaire. Today, few people remember it except music publishers, sentimentalists, and the Russians, who last week began adapting The Dollar Princess for their own devices.

Love & the Coal Trust. The Dollar Princess was Miss Alice Cowder, dashing daughter of John W. Cowder, president of the Coal Trust. Alice was a strong-minded girl, always abreast of stockmarket quotations. Of her it was said that "in any sort of weather, she works on all the while, until she's raked together, a tidy little pile."*Because her father liked to employ titled Europeans as footmen and office boys, Alice had acquired a rather low opinion of continental coronets ("You bid the right amount--you own a duke or count").

Presently, there appeared, from England, not a duke or count but plain Frederick George Cuthbert William Smythe, of the Smokeless Coal Smythes, who was determined to woo & win Alice, partly for her looks and partly for her $20 million which would help stabilize the shaky family business. After announcing: "I'll catch my little filly, I'll tame her, willy nilly, right round the neck I'll noose her and nevermore will loose her," he got a job as Alice's private secretary. For an act or so, Alice dodged his lasso. Then, in the second act finale where things started popping in the old Viennese operettas, Alice announced to a party of distinguished guests that she had picked Secretary Smythe to be her husband. Though at this point Freddie loved her well, he found her procedure highhanded. When old Cowder offered him $50 million as an added inducement, Freddie sang with simple dignity: "I trample on your gold..." Cowder: He scorns my daughter's addresses! Freddie: Thus do I treat all dollar princesses! The Chorus: He won't consent? Extremely queer He must be mad, it's very clear. Alice (weeping): Oh the disgrace, I cannot bear it... Freddie (in lilting three-quarter time): Her every action confesses The fortune she is worth The proudest of dollar princesses-- Is sometimes the poorest on earth...(Curtain)

In the third act, the Coal Trust was in a bad way, chiefly because Old Man Cowder had ignored business for the sake of a Polish countess (in reality no countess at all, but a lion tamer). Smokeless Coal, on the other hand, was flourishing, which evened things up--at least by the peculiar laws of Viennese musicals. Alice says: "Oh take me, love, take me away," and Viennese audiences (in 1907) went home, humming happily and concluding that Americans, while somewhat uncouth and acquisitive, probably had hearts of gold or, at least, coal.

Half a century passed, during which archdukes became practically extinct and even the golden hoards of the dollar princesses diminished. Last week, at the Moscow Operetta Theater, the Russians revived The Dollar Princess. They had decided that the story needed some changes--not many, really, just a point underscored here and an angle sharpened there.

Love & the Main Force. In Moscow, Freddie Smythe becomes Kazimir, a fine, upstanding Polish proletarian; the lady lion tamer is transformed into a lovely Polish girl who sings of love, faithfulness and sunshine over Warsaw. Kazimir and Ludviga got a job with Cowder (now spelled Kuder, rhymes with cruder) so that they could save money and get married. However, they are advised to conceal their romance, since "nobody in America will hire fiancees--their minds are too much on love and not sufficiently on work."

Alice (now known as Jenny) wears slacks and a gold crown around the house, takes an immediate fancy to Kazimir and informs him brusquely: "We will go yachting in the moonlight. Here's a check, get yourself a yacht."

The plot unfolds in the fabulous Kuder mansion (of course on Broadway), where the footmen wear burgundy, the bellhops chartreuse, and the various rooms are connected with an intercom television network. Old Kuder goes after Ludviga with some very fancy small talk: "You are a goddess, I am a millionaire, so we are equals. I wish I were younger but immortality is one thing you can't buy even in America." Meanwhile, Dollar Princess Jenny plots to throw her father out of his business and get all the money for herself. She sings: "Love is no good at the bank. Dollars, that's realistic. Money, that is power. I'll buy myself the man I love."

But when she tries it, Kazimir (like Freddie before him) spurns her. His farewell remark, however, has been brought up to date: "Your dollars are going to break their necks in other countries. There, the working class is the main force. They are not all like Venezuela . . ."

Setting this speech to music might have distracted attention from the message, so the Russians wisely did not try. Kazimir and Ludviga return home to the People's Democracy, leaving the Dollar Princess to smother in her gold. Kuder, for his part, decides to buy up a few votes and run for the Senate on the Democratic ticket. "Broadway," he remarks, "will be happy though amazed."

Broadway would be amazed, all right, but not nearly as much as the sentimentalists, who had believed all these years that The Dollar Princess was just an old Viennese operetta.

* Copyright 1909, copyright renewed Harms, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.