Victor Light Opera Company sings Gems from Jerome Kern's \"Rock-a-bye Baby\" on Victor 35677, recorded on June 26, 1918.
The group of singers who recorded for Victor, from mid-1909 into the 1930s, medleys from popular light operas, musical comedies, revues, and even early musical motion pictures was known collectively as the Victor Light Opera Company.
Typically a chorus of voices opens a performance, a few soloists or duos are given less than a minute each to deliver the chorus of a hit song from the featured musical show, and the chorus returns to deliver the finale.
Soloists are not identified on labels for Victor Light Opera Company productions, which is curious. Had individuals been identified on labels, the company might have been more widely regarded as an all-star ensemble of record artists.
Singers changed almost from session to session though in early years a handful of singers were featured regularly as soloists, namely Harry Macdonough, Reinald Werrenrath, Elizabeth Wheeler, and Lucy Isabelle Marsh.
Uncredited soloists throughout the acoustic era were usually exclusive to Victor. Free-lance artists such as Henry Burr and Arthur Collins were not included in medleys. Some productions included singers who seem to have made no other records.
Titles from 1909 include \"Gems From 'Havana'\" (31744), \"Gems From 'The Beauty Spot'\" (31745), \"Gems From The Prince of Tonight\" (31748), \"Gems From 'The Dollar Princess'\" (31751), \"Gems From 'A Broken Idol'\" (31757), and \"Gems From 'The Golden Girl'\" (31758). Other typical titles are \"Gems From 'The Country Girl'\" (31838, 1911), \"Gems From `Naughty Marietta'\" (31852, 1912), and \"Gems From `Leave It To Jane'\" (35666, 1918).
Many discs in Victor's \"Gems\" series make available the only recordings of songs from shows that were once popular but are now mostly forgotten.
The \"Gems\" series began at a time when American musical theater was becoming distinctly American, with fewer musical comedies being mere imitations of European models. Around 1910 Viennese operetta remained a powerful influence on American musical theater, and the Victor Light Opera Company did record medleys of shows by Franz Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán, Oscar Straus, and similar composers.
However, composers offering musical scores with a distinctly American flavor were also emerging, Jerome Kern making his special contributions to American musical comedy within a few years. Medleys of several Kern shows are performed by the Victor Light Opera Company, beginning with The Girl From Utah in 1914.
Each show that was given a medley treatment by the Victor Light Opera Company was genuinely popular in its time, and not many hugely successful shows produced between 1910 and 1930 were spared the medley treatment.
Notable exceptions include Watch Your Step, which was the first musical show with a score entirely by Irving Berlin, as well as Robinson Crusoe, Jr. and Sinbad, both of which had starred Al Jolson (Jolson himself recorded for Columbia the shows' best numbers).
Many musical works featured in the \"Gems\" series had been first performed on stage decades earlier, with Wallace's Maritana being the oldest work to be given a medley treatment. It opened in 1848.
Nearly all Victor Light Opera Company performances were issued on twelve-inch discs.
Walter B. Rogers supervised light opera medley recordings as well as performances credited to the related Victor Opera Company, which sang medleys of grand opera.
When the company was formed in 1909, its roster consisted of S. H. Dudley, Frederick Gunster, William F. Hooley, Harry Macdonough, Billy Murray, Frank C. Stanley, Elise Stevenson, and Elizabeth Wheeler.
Macdonough and Hooley remained soloists for years. For short comic numbers Billy Murray was used in over a dozen productions.
Victor Light Opera Company \"Gems from Rock-a-bye Baby\" (Jerome Kern) Victor 35677 (1918)
