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Half a century passed, during which archdukes became practically extinct and even the golden hoards of the dollar princesses diminished. Last week, at the Moscow Operetta Theater, the Russians revived The Dollar Princess. They had decided that the story needed some changes—not many, really, just a point underscored here and an angle sharpened there.
Love & the Main Force. In Moscow, Freddie Smythe becomes Kazimir, a fine, upstanding Polish proletarian; the lady lion tamer is transformed into a lovely Polish girl who sings of love, faithfulness and sunshine over Warsaw. Kazimir and Ludviga got a job with Cowder (now spelled Kuder, rhymes with cruder) so that they could save money and get married. However, they are advised to conceal their romance, since "nobody in America will hire fianceés—their minds are too much on love and not sufficiently on work."
Alice (now known as Jenny) wears slacks and a gold crown around the house, takes an immediate fancy to Kazimir and informs him brusquely: "We will go yachting in the moonlight. Here's a check, get yourself a yacht."
The plot unfolds in the fabulous Kuder mansion (of course on Broadway), where the footmen wear burgundy, the bellhops chartreuse, and the various rooms are connected with an intercom television network. Old Kuder goes after Ludviga with some very fancy small talk: "You are a goddess, I am a millionaire, so we are equals. I wish I were younger but immortality is one thing you can't buy even in America." Meanwhile, Dollar Princess Jenny plots to throw her father out of his business and get all the money for herself. She sings: "Love is no good at the bank. Dollars, that's realistic. Money, that is power. I'll buy myself the man I love."
But when she tries it, Kazimir (like Freddie before him) spurns her. His farewell remark, however, has been brought up to date: "Your dollars are going to break their necks in other countries. There, the working class is the main force. They are not all like Venezuela . . ."
Setting this speech to music might have distracted attention from the message, so the Russians wisely did not try. Kazimir and Ludviga return home to the People's Democracy, leaving the Dollar Princess to smother in her gold. Kuder, for his part, decides to buy up a few votes and run for the Senate on the Democratic ticket. "Broadway," he remarks, "will be happy though amazed."
Broadway would be amazed, all right, but not nearly as much as the sentimentalists, who had believed all these years that The Dollar Princess was just an old Viennese operetta.
* Copyright 1909, copyright renewed Harms, Inc. Reprinted by permission.