The Serenade: History and Key Facts

The Serenade is an operetta with music and lyrics by Victor Herbert, and book by Harry B. Smith. Produced by a troupe called "The Bostonians", it premiered on Broadway on March 16, 1897, at the Knickerbocker Theatre and ran initially for 79 performances. It remained very popular into the new century, running almost continuously for the next seven years.

Herbert's second Broadway success (after The Wizard of the Nile), The Serenade is a romantic comedy about a song that sweeps the Spanish countryside. It has a complicated plot involving a girl, her near-sighted guardian who is trying to woo her, and a suitor who steals the girl away from the guardian. The Serenade helped spark the career of Alice Nielsen, a young soprano from Nashville. She went on to form her own theatre company and continued to star in other Herbert operettas.

It was revived on March 4, 1930, at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre, where it ran for 15 performances.

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