Recently, while roaming around the attic, I played a 98-year-old Edison Blue Amberol 4-minute cylinder of "gems from The Mascot," a recording I'd owned for years but never played. The music was instantly appealing to the degree I wondered whether the operetta was recorded in more recent years....and whether a CD might exist of the entire work. A search on Amazon turned up a 2-CD set labeled "La Mascotte," recorded in French. For my taste, some French operetta can be repetitious and musically trite, esp. those where dialogue dominates the work.
That is NOT the case here. Most of what's heard on the two CD's is spritely operetta at its best. The melodies are well composed and attractively orchestrated.
There's dialogue here and there but not enough to be distracting. I like this operetta and am glad to own it.
