| Lola Montez | |
|---|---|
 Original cast recording | |
| Music | Peter Stannard |
| Lyrics | Peter Benjamin |
| Book | Alan Burke |
| Productions | 1958 Melbourne 1958 Brisbane/Sydney |
Lola Montez is a 1958 Australian musical. It was written by Alan Burke, Peter Stannard, and Peter Benjamin and focuses on four days of Lola Montez visiting the Ballarat Goldfields.
Stannard, Benjamin, and Burke were all friends from university who wanted to write a musical together. Alan Burke says he had never heard of Lola Montez until he heard her mentioned in a program on the ABC. He was attracted to the subject because it was Australian but had international appeal; he did not want to make something along the lines of On Our Selection . Also, since the lead was a performer, the songs would come naturally. [1]
Hugh Hunt of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust heard several auditions of the work and agreed to fund a trial production at the Union Theatre Repertory Company in Melbourne in early 1958. It was directed by John Sumner. The production was very popular.
The Trust took up their option and launched a new production. George Carden was brought in to direct. [2] [3]
Alan Burke says his dream Lola was Vivien Leigh but that he wanted Moyra Fraser to star. [1] Hugh Hunt imported 25 year old Mary Preston from the United Kingdom to play the lead. [4] Burke said Preston was hopelessly miscast playing a 37 year old aging beauty. [1]
The show trialled in Brisbane for a short season. Michael Cole, playing Daniel, was sacked in Brisbane because of his voice. He was replaced by Eric Thornton, who Burke said was too old - a 45-year-old man playing a 19-year-old. The musical moved to Sydney, where it opened on 22 October 1958. Burke says it lost £30,000 and "was a show loved by very few people but it went into legend." [1] However the show did run for more than three months. [2] [5] Michael Cole's single recording of "Saturday Girl" became a minor hit. [3]
Cole later appeared in the TV musical Pardon Miss Westcott which was commissioned from the writers of Lola Montez. [6]
The production and costumes were designed by Hermia Boyd. A retrospective celebration of the work was mounted in February 2018 at the Smorgon Family Plaza, Arts Centre Melbourne. [7]
Lola Montez was adapted for TV by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1962. [8]
In 1965, the ABC presented a TV special called Lola and the Highwayman .
The musical has been much revived since in amateur and school productions. [9]
The musical was heavily revised in 1988 for a production in Canberra. [3] [10] [11]
Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld, better known by the stage name Lola Montez, was an Irish dancer and actress who became famous as a Spanish dancer, courtesan, and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her Gräfin von Landsfeld. At the start of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, she was forced to flee. She proceeded to the United States via Austria, Switzerland, France and London, to return to her work as an entertainer and lecturer.
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Lola Montez was a 1962 Australian TV play which was based on the musical of the same name.
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