Studio Cast: Rose-Marie

In Harbinger’s second partnership with the Smithsonian, this is the first release in any format of the Institution’s production of Rudolf Friml’s beloved 1924 operetta, Rose-Marie, starring Broadway’s Ron Raines. It is the only complete recording of the score, which features lyrics by the 29-year-old Oscar Hammerstein nearly 20 years before he began his collaboration with Richard Rodgers.

Rose-Marie was the first American musical with a Canadian locale—the Canadian Rockies—and includes such evergreens at “Indian Love Call” ("When I'm calling you, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo”), "Pretty Things," "Only a Kiss" and the stirring title song. Broadway audiences flocked to the show for 557 performances, making it the fourth longest-running musical of the 1920s.

Rose-Marie has been packaged with historic production photos and notes by two longtime Harbinger colleagues: co-producer Dwight Blocker Bowers, curator emeritus of the Smithsonian, and Ted Chapin, longtime president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization.

Says Bowers: “It's not an overstatement to claim that Rose-Marie was the first American musical theater work to achieve wide international success. When the Smithsonian’s recordings program was suspended, the unreleased Rose-Marie album was a casualty, and I was given the chance to rescue the master tapes of our sessions. Hence the collaboration with Harbinger, whose slogan is apt: Albums for the Discerning Collector.”

Track Listing 

Overture

Prelude - Opening Chorus (Vive la Canadienne)

Hard-Boiled Herman

Rose-Marie

The Mounties

Lak Jeem

Rose-Marie (Reprise)

Indian Love Call

Campfire Impression