Alice Lorence

"Mr Stokowski is tall and straight, and has beautiful hair. He speaks in a low voice and never gets excited". Deanna, July 1937.

The long term love affair between Deanna and  Leopold Stokowski, which began while they were making their film One Hundred Men and a Girl in 1937, must be numbered amongst the great artistic love affairs, and it is one of the most amusing and charming. Compared with the passionate romance between Stoki and Deanna, Stoki's parallel romance with the actress Greta Garbo, which began about the same time, pales into insignificance. Indeed Stoki's supposed romance with Garbo was little more than a screen to shield the true object of his affections; and it wasn't long before Stoki abandoned the cold and neurotic Garbo in total to focus all his attention on the warm and lovable Deanna who was his inspiration and muse. It was Deanna, not Stoki, who initiated the love affair between them. She had developed a mad crush on Stoki even before they met when she first saw him conduct on stage, and, uninhibited in the pursuit of her love life, she was determined to possess him, the two becoming lovers either during or soon after the production of their film One Hundred Men and a Girl. As two great musical talents, there can be little doubt that the love affair between Stoki and Deanna was preordained by divine forces.

Michael A. Fullerton

In all her films, except for Can't Help Singing and Up in Central Park which were conventional operettas, Deanna Durbin was the sole singer. Her films thus differ from conventional operettas, and for that matter from conventional musical comedies, which feature a number of singers; in the case of operettas there being at least one male singer, most often a tenor, to counterbalance the soprano. Thus there is need of a new term "operella" to  describe musical plays on the stage or screen which, while featuring a female singer of operatic calibre like Deanna, differ from conventional operettas in having no other singers. The term operella has made rare appearances in the past, being used, in no rigorous manner, as no more than an alternate  name for operetta. It is now time for the term operella to be restricted to a new and specific use to describe a new art form which first arose on the cinema screen in the 1930s, but which could just as well appear on the stage.

          The idea of producing films with just a single singer, a single female singer, arose independently in Europe and America. And in Europe the originators of this concept were none other than Joe Pasternak and Henry Kosterlitz who would later produce and direct Deanna's films in America. Their films in Europe however featured a popular female singer, most often the cabaret singer Franciska Gaal.  But these films, lacking a female singer of operatic calibre, were definitely not operellas. One must instead look to America for the first operellas starring operatic divas, the feminine stars of these films being true stars of the opera stage, being in fact prima donnas recruited from the Metropolitan Opera in New York: Grace Moore, Lily Pons and Gladys Swarthout. And the first true operella was perhaps One Night of Love which starred Grace Moore in 1934.

Michael A. Fullerton