A friend who’d spotted all the sharing I was doing on social media this weekend about the sights in Wooster, Ohio wondered what the heck had brought me there, and the answer is—why, the Ohio Light Opera, of course!

Back in 2012, we saw three of their performances, and this year, we decided to make it four. The reason it’s worth driving hundreds of miles to Wooster (or in the case of other audience members, flying in from far greater distances) is that the OLO is dedicated to staging not just excellent productions of Gilbert and Sullivan classics, but also lesser-known operettas which can be seen no where else.

For example, Emmerich Kálmán (with whose daughter I can be seen above) was considered one of the masters of the operetta early last century, yet his works are now rarely performed. Except at the Ohio Light Opera, which this year launched its eleventh Kálmán production. And while the OLO also did a Pirates of Penzance this year—and I’m sure the production was wonderful—the world has no shortage of G&S, so what drew us to Wooster were the once popular but now mostly forgotten operettas which make OLO unique.

Here’s what we saw (with a few photos smurched from the OLO Facebook page) …

Dream City and the Magic Knight

We began with Victor Herbert’s 1906 operetta Dream City and the Magic Knight, a hit in New York which fell into obscurity due to a nefarious producer who wanted to take it on the road and lower Herbert’s royalties. When Herbert balked, the producer cut a lengthy (and hilarious) spoof of Lohengrin that’s central to the second act, tossed out much of Herbert’s music from other sections, and commissioned a new score. Herbert issued a restraining order, but by then, the altered production had bombed, pretty much soiling the show’s reputation so that there were no stagings for a century.

Which is a shame. Because the show was indeed, to quote the opening-night review from the New York Times, “a hit from start to finish.” The story of a slick real estate conman trying to dupe a Long Island farmer out of his acreage kept us laughing all night, particularly Daniel Neer’s performance as farmer Wilhelm Dinglebender. Irene particularly loved the Lohengrin send-up, which is a must-see for Wagner fans, though at the same time it’s also a can’t-see … unless the OLO releases a recorded version someday, as Dream City and the Magic Knight is unlikely to be found on any other stage.

Call Me Madam

Irving Berlin’s 1950 Call Me Madam, which not as obscure as the other shows we saw, still isn’t widely performed. A show like Guys and Dolls, for example, is a staple of the high school theater circuit, and if you want to catch it on stage, you can do so often. Not so Call Me Madam. Which is why we thought it worth catching at OLO in the midst of the rarities, and they did a great job of it.

We worried going in whether they’d find an actor capable of stepping into Ethel Merman’s shoes as “hostess with the mostest on the ball” Sally Adams, but Alexa Devlin managed to bring the proper brashness (and volume!) to the role. And Ted Christopher did a much better job as Cosmo Constantine than George Sanders in the movie version.

I don’t have any pictures to share from the production, but here I am with Christopher—or a cardboard cutout of him anyway—in one of his other roles—The King from the Lohengrin section of Dream City and the Magic Knight.

Oh, Lady! Lady!!

The 1916 Oh, Lady! Lady!!, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by P.G. Wodehouse, was a marvelous farce. In fact, to keep it from getting too serious during its original run, the song “Bill,” that classic number which eventually ended up in Show Boat, was originally meant to appear here, but was cut while the show was on the road because it was deemed as being too heavy.

Here’s a 1918 recording of a medley of songs that did make it into the original production—though, sadly, not the song “Greenwich Village,” about what living in that bohemian neighborhood will do to a person, or “Do It Now,” a fun vaudevillian number by a male trio imploring all men to fall in love.

This is definitely a show that should be done more often. If you don’t believe me, believe Dorothy Parker, who reviewed it for Vanity Fair, writing, “If you ask me, I will look you fearlessly in the eye and tell you in low, throbbing tones that it has it over any other musical comedy in town.”

The Little King

And then we come to the Kálmán, based on a real-life scandal during which King Manual II of Portugal was forced into exile during a revolutionary uprising while romancing French chanteuse Gaby Deslys. Kálmán was inspired by this to write his 1912 operetta—the last production of which appears to have been a 1921 Hungarian-language staging in Manhattan!

So clearly, if you want to experience Kálmán’s The Little King, this will likely be your only shot. And where else can you find the composer’s daughter … as well as Stefan Frey (below), author of a new biography of Kálmán?

In fact, it looks like there’s still at least one more performance of each of this season’s OLO shows, so check the schedule here and try to make it to Wooster for a theatrical experience that can’t be duplicated elsewhere!