PERFORMANCE PONDERABLES
Lots of good operetta composers seemed to fail because they couldn't find a librettist. What was it about operetta as a literary genre that made it so challenging to write?
Diva-esque female lead often times has the show named after her, for example, The Merry Widow & Naughty Marietta. It's interesting that so much stock is put in the female performer when for a lot of this time-period, women still could not vote.
As time goes on, we see that operetta plots become less farcical and more plot-based. Why does this happen? Do audiences influence this change or does it come from composers/librettists?
Operetta's settings were almost always in this far away, made up place reminiscent of Germany or Austria. Then all of the sudden a lot of American operettas are taking place in the United States. What happened?
After WWI, did American operetta tour to Europe or have the kind of effect that European operetta had here?
Unauthorized versions of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in America were generally pretty bad, so they trained performers in England and brought them over. Did that ever change? Did they ever set up a G&S school or training program for American performers?