The New Moon
The New Moon is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Mandel, and Laurence Schwab. The show was the third in a string of Broadway hits for Romberg (after The Student Prince (1924) and The Desert Song (1926)) written in the style of Viennese operetta. Set in 1792, shortly before the French Revolution, the story centers on a young French aristocrat in disguise, who has fled his country and falls in love with the daughter of a prominent New Orleans planter.
It premiered in Philadelphia in 1927 and played on Broadway in 1928. It spawned a number of revivals and two film adaptations, and it remains popular with light opera companies. The piece turned out to be "Broadway's last hit operetta", as World War II and the Golden Age of musicals approached, heralding a change in musical theatre genres.
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