The Student Prince Fun Facts
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The Student Prince
In the late 1800s, we meet a young prince named Karl from the small fictional German kingdom of Karlsburg. Karl has been raised most of his life for the military, but when it comes time for him to marry, the princess picked for him can’t stand his stiff formality. His tutor recommends that he be sent off to get a university education in Heidelberg, where Karl can learn “charm.” Karl eventually slips into the social mix and becomes accepted as a “good chap” by his student peers. He also falls deeply in love with a pretty, popular, and musically inclined barmaid named Kathie, an innkeeper’s daughter who holds “court” in the local biergarten. Soon, however, Karl must decide whether or not to turn his back on Kathie and marry the princess, taking his place in the small kingdom that he’s been preordained to rule.
Top Photo: Courtesy of Nashville Opera
Right Photo: The Student Prince Pittsburgh CLO cast, Photo by Ed Eckman
1. The Student Prince is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on the play Alt Heidelberg.
2. The Student Prince was first produced more than 85 years ago at the Jolson Theatre on December 2, 1924.
3. The rousing chorus “Drink! Drink! Drink!” from the song “Drinking Song” was used as background music in a recent series of Aquafina commercials. It was also used as background music for Minute Maid orange juice TV commercials of the late 1960s and early 1970s and was especially popular with theatergoers in 1924, when the United States was in the midst of Prohibition.
4. The stage work was revived twice on Broadway - once in the 1930s and again in the 1940s.
5. The show contains some of the most beautiful, yet grueling, tenor arias, notably “Serenade.”
6. “The Student Prince” was also a 1954 film starring, as the credits read, “the singing voice of Mario Lanza.” Lanza had become embroiled in a dispute with MGM and the studio dismissed him. MGM retained the rights to the soundtrack that the renowned tenor already recorded. The songs would become some of the most identified with Lanza, even though they were mouthed in the film by Edmund Purdom, who took over the role of Prince Karl.
Birds Are Winging
By Our Bearing So Sedate
Carnival of Springtime
Come Answer to Our Call
Come Boys
Deep in My Heart, Dear
Drinking Song
Farewell Dear
Farmer Jacob
The Flag That Flies
Gaudeamus Igitur
Golden Days
Just We Two
Serenade
Sing a Little Song
Students’ Life
To the Inn We're Marching
We’re Off To Paris
Welcome to Prince
What Memories
You’re in Heidelberg
The Student Prince - 1954 Film Version