DIVA DISCS

An historical addendum to Don Shirley’s Theater Notes column of Feb. 19:

While “The Cradle Will Rock” may have been the first Broadway musical to receive an original cast album, in 1938, the very first recordings of a Broadway musical to be released simultaneously with the opening of the show were in 1911, with songs from the world premiere of Franz Lehar’s operetta “Gypsy Love.”

On opening night its star, famed opera diva Marguerita Sylva, suffered an attack of laryngitis. Unable to continue beyond the first act, her understudy finished the performance. The following day, Edison, which produced the 16 recordings, ran a large ad in the papers announcing that opening-night audiences unable to hear Sylva in person could assuage that lack by listening to her sing the songs from “Gypsy Love” in the comfort of their own homes.

As a result of the opening-night catastrophe, “Gypsy Love” never was the smash hit it should have been, though Sylva completed its run and toured with the show. But Lehar’s songs were still able to be heard, both by the original cast recordings and, nearly 20 years later, in the first all-Technicolor, all-talkie motion picture, MGM’s “The Rogue Song” (1929), starring Lawrence Tibbett and directed by Lionel Barrymore.

KAY E. KUTER

North Hollywood