The Desert Song

This is an operetta I find myself returning to quite a lot. Cyd Charisse’s death brought it to mind again.

It’s high camp, but – like a fair bit of high camp – also very moving. I’d like to see or hear a performance that was given with total conviction and total seriousness: a difficult thing to imagine, but it would be worth the effort, I reckon.

I love the title song, it’s massively schmaltzy and poetic.

I’d say the merits of the piece are that it’s shamelessly overblown, overpowering schmaltz and hokum – none of the preceding words are negatives in my lexicon!

I was introduced to it by its mention in the Joe Orton diaries: Joe attended the Palace Theatre production shortly before he died and his thoughts on it chime with my own.

Romberg was, I think, a great composer of operetta. I hear a lot of Romberg in Korngold, and vice versa.

“Deep in my Heart” is a very loose and schmaltzy biography of Romberg (played by gloriously hammy José Ferrer) but it has the virtue of Helen Traubel gloriously singing several Romberg standards. Otherwise, the film is packed with MGM stars: Howard Keel, Jane Powell, Ann Miller – and how she vamps her way through “It” from The Desert Song, together with Cyd Charisse dancing to a most exotic setting for “One Alone”, and the brothers Gene and Fred Kelly hoofing their way through “I love to go swimmin’ with women”. Outrageous camp fun.

Tags: cyd charisse, gene kelly, joe orton, korngold, musical, operetta, romberg, schmaltz