Carl Otto, the Prince.
Hans Wagner, an American citizen.
Tom Wagner, his son.
Arthur St. John Wilberforce.
François.
Mrs. Madison Crocker, an American widow.
Sidonie.
Edith.
Nellie.
Jimmy.
[Tourists, students, flower-girls, sailors, etc.
The scene is laid in Nice; time, the present.
"The Prince of Pilsen," the latest, and in many respects the best, of Mr.
Luders' productions, like most musical comedies of the prevailing kind,
has but a brief and somewhat incongruous story. The first act opens
during the annual flower festival at Nice. The proprietor of the Hôtel
Internationale learns that the Prince of Pilsen will reach there on the
morrow incognito, and determines he shall be received with all the
attentions due to his rank. He employs a band of musicians to escort him
from the station to the hotel, and hires flower-girls to strew his way
with roses. Hans Wagner, a German-American brewer from Cincinnati, and
his daughter, who go to Nice to meet the brewer's son, an American naval
officer, arrive on the same day. The brewer is mistaken for the Prince,
and he and his party meet with a brilliant but somewhat surprising
reception. He can account for it in no other way than that his greeting
as the Prince of Pilsen is a tribute to the excellence of his Pilsener
beer, and accepts it complaisantly. When the real prince arrives,
however, with a company of Heidelberg students, he is ignored, and even
has some difficulty in securing accommodations. The Prince, however, does
not declare his identity at once, but waits for an opportunity to expose
the impostor who is trading on his name. He accidentally meets the
daughter, and after some conversation with her is sure that her father
has not intended to deceive and is not responsible for the mistake. He
decides therefore to continue the rôle of private citizen, and is the
more confirmed in his decision when he finds himself falling in love with
the brewer's daughter. This enrages the brother, who challenges the
Prince, which leads to the arrest of both of them. In the second act all
the complications get straightened out. The real Prince marries the
brewer's daughter, and the brewer himself takes home the American widow,
Mrs. Madison Crocker, as his wife.
On this somewhat slight thread of a plot the composer has strung numerous
bits of lively, exhilarating music, some of it of a decidedly better kind
than is usually found in these potpourris, but the most of it of the sort
which is popular and easily caught up. The number of the lyrics as well
as of the topical songs, choruses, and extravaganzas is so large, and
they are of such uniformity in interest and tunefulness, that it is
difficult to single out the most conspicuous. The numbers, however, which
have made the greatest success are Wagner's topical song, "He didn't know
exactly what to do"; a charming smoking-song, "Pictures in the Smoke";
the "Tale of the Sea-shell"; the unaccompanied male chorus, "Oh!
Heidelberg, dear Heidelberg," which should be a favorite students' song;
and the "Song of the Cities," in which the peculiarities of the girls of
various American cities are imitated, the song ending with a droll cake
walk. So far as numbers go, indeed, the opera presents a bewildering
embarrassment of good things.