LEHAR LAPSE

In attempting to augment Don Shirley’s accurate statement that “The Cradle Will Rock” was in 1938 the first Broadway musical with an original-cast album, Kay E. Kuter has provided a well-meaning but essentially misleading collection of non-facts (Letters, Feb. 26).

Kuter claims that “the very first recordings of a Broadway musical to be released simultaneously with the opening of the show were in 1911,” in conjunction with the world premiere of Lehar’s “Gypsy Love.” This was actually the Broadway opening; the world premiere of “Zigeunerliebe” took place Jan. 8, 1910, in Vienna. Also, there were numerous original-cast recordings (single 78s and cylinders) throughout the 1890s.

Kuter further claims that Edison recorded the star, Marguerita Sylva, in 16 selections from “Gypsy Love,” although an original Edison flyer given to me by his son Teddy announces merely “four vocal successes of the opera. . . .”

He adds that nearly 20 years later the Lehar tunes could be heard in “The Rogue Song,” “the first all-Technicolor, all-talkie motion picture.” In fact, all but two Lehar songs were replaced in the MGM film with new songs by Herbert Stothart, and “The Rogue Song” was preceded by many all Technicolor, all-talking pictures, the first of which was “On With the Show” (Warners, 1929).

MILES KREUGER

President, the Institute of the American Musical Inc.

Los Angeles