>Showboat is said to be the first >Broadway musical with a through story line (as opposed to a loose >plot that barely holds together a bunch of songs that don't have much >to do with each other)
That may well be said, but I would differ. I think this is really just a semantic distinction of what counts as a "Broadway musical". Plenty of pieces by Friml, Herbert, Romberg, etc, had a through story line. The only difference is we don't call them "musicals", we call them "operettas". I think the more significant distinction of Showboat is that it was a major _operetta seria_ in a milieu then dominated by _operetta buffa_. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
