Day’s return to Drury Lane began with the opening of Rose-Marie on 20 March 1925, 152
and her rendition of the warm, smooth “Indian Love Call” made her a darling of the English stage.153 Rose Marie was pure, bright operetta. Its range is lower than that of Irene, but its point tessitura is higher due to the absence of any songs in a popular style. Notations on the orchestral scores and instrumental parts reveal that this song was transposed down a semitone from the published piano/vocal score. Its opening sits only a tone higher than the point tessitura of the entire show (see Figures 2—4 and 2—6), and is also at the centre of Day’s vocal range. The relaxed way she produces the notes illustrates her smooth, even vibrato and unbroken legato lines.
Figure 3—6: The written score of the opening from “Indian Love Call” (Harbach, Hammerstein II and Friml 1924, 49); see also Spectrogram 3—4 and CD Track 3—6.
151
The New York Times, 8 February 1923.
152 The show, with music written by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and the book and lyrics by
Harbach and Hammerstein, ran for 851 performances, 300 more than in New York where the lead was played by Metropolitan Opera star Mary Ellis. It was premiered in London six months after its opening in New York, becoming a favourite show of King George V who attended three of its performances
(Traubner 2003, 380).
153 “Indian Love Call” was subsequently made immortal by Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in the
Spectrogram 3—4 presents an excellent example of the classical soprano phonation and Day’s superb vocal support and breath control can be seen in the opening bars of the song. While the fundamental is higher than the first formant of the average spoken [u],154 Day tunes the formant upwards to match the pitch of the fundamental. Since the second partial is already within the general area of the second formant, both are
amplified by the natural resonances of the vocal tract. Spectrogram 3—4 shows an electric recording, though also recorded with the singers on the stage and, consequently, the sound is slightly muffled. However, at this particular point, the sparse orchestration enables Day’s voice to soar through the orchestral texture, even though the pitch she is singing is not particularly high.
After she had finished Rose-Marie, Day starred in Sigmund Romberg’s exotic, romantic operetta The Desert Song.155 Audiences and critics alike responded warmly to her portrayal of Margot:
…the darling French girl in love with life and adventure [who] captivated the audience as much by her vitality as her beautiful voice. In the end they cried for “Edie,” who was too overcome to speak.156
The title song, Day’s love duet with co-star Harry Welchman, “simply brought the house down” and the “French Marching Song”, with Day and the chorus marching in formation dressed in soldier’s uniforms “was encored until the very stalls were humming and stamping in time.”157
The show was a colourful spectacle with a large cast of singers and dancers, but elements of doubt and reservation began to creep into otherwise glowing reviews. The theatre reviewer in The Times commented that Day made it “pleasantly clear that Margot [was] enjoying herself, even in the midst of peril,” and concluded that “when all is said and done, it [was] the massed dancing that
remain[ed] the chief pleasure of this cheerful evening.”158 The critic in The Daily Telegraph agreed, also concluding that the chorus was “the real success of the piece,” and explaining his lack of comment about Day and the character of Margot by saying:
To expostulate why Miss Edith Day is Miss Edith Day [would be]…to waste
154 All references to spoken formant frequencies are taken from Howard and Murphy, 2008, p.47. 155
The Desert Song opened in West End on 7 April 1927, six months after its Broadway debut. In both London and New York it ran for 471 performances, although Day did not remainfor their entire run.
156The Daily Sketch, 7 April 1927. 157The Daily Sketch, 7 April 1927. 158
the day and a lot of other things as well. She sang exceedingly pleasantly, and went through her tragic experiences with a heartening jollity.159
It is evident from these reviews that audiences did not necessarily come to see the character Day was playing or listen to the music she was singing. Instead they came to see Edith Day performing, with some devoted fans queuing all night in order to
attend.160 Importantly, Day’s recordings of The Desert Song reveal a maturing voice developing a richer, heavier and darker sound; a voice with the character of a mature woman, rather than an ingénue. At thirty-one years old, Day’s voice was no longer as agile as it was in Irene. The lyrics of the faster vocal passages are less distinct as she struggles to voice each syllable, although the sustained notes in her upper register seem effortlessly light and smooth.
Day’s next appearance was as Magnolia in the London production of Show Boat, 161
which was set on the Mississippi River during the 1893 Chicago World Fair, with folk and blues music as well as the usual operetta standards. The English audience found the setting, and much of the plot, somewhat incomprehensible:
[I]t is utterly alien. Here we float theatres only in [a] financial sense. The houseboat on the Mississippi in which entertainments are given has no counterpart on the Thames. We have no colour question. Our sheriffs do not walk about in black frock coat, sombrero, gaiters, and an evening-dress waistcoat, and talk of arresting people. It is all rather bewildering.162
As with The Desert Song, critics were non-committal about Day’s performance. She sang “extremely well”, with a “pleasing voice”, the part of Magnolia had “good scope for the display of her versatility”, and there was “nothing that any musical comedy star could be asked to do…that she [could not] do with complete accomplishment.” 163
One critic marvelled at the character of Magnolia, and went on to say the “fact that she is also, very unmistakably Miss Edith Day in no way lessens her appeal.” These bland
159 The Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1927. 160
The Daily Sketch, 7 April 1927.
161The production opened on 3 May 1928 to a mixed critical reception and ran for 350 performances. It
was considered to be American musical theatre’s first masterpiece.
162
James Agate, The Sunday Times, May 1928.
163
The direct quotations in this passage are taken from newspaper cuttings cut carefully out of the London newspapers and glued into a copy of the opening night program (covering all the advertising) without reference to the names of the newspapers. The program is held in the Theatre Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
comments were similar to the cautionary asides made a year earlier, the inference again being that her success in a role was due to her established presence as Edith Day, rather than her vocal acuity, which was simply assumed. In his discussion of the “unequal fashion” with which time dealt with characters in the play, the most blatant statement that Day was more prima donna than actress came from James Agate of The Sunday Times:
Alone Miss Edith Day held out against the wreckful siege of battering days. Her locks were like the raven when we were first acquent [sic], and remained so to the end – a very creditable achievement for a character who, from the play’s chronology, must have been at least sixty.164