El Capitan

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El Capitan (1896), a comic opera by Charles Klein (book), John Philip Sousa (music, lyrics), Tom Frost (lyrics). [Broadway Theatre, 112 perf.] Don Medigua ( De Wolf Hopper), the viceroy of Peru, captures the rebel El Capitan, executes him, and assumes his place in disguise. The rebels capture Medigua's servant, Pozzo (Klein), mistaking him for his master, and news of the viceroy's apparent capture prompts his wife ( Alice Hosmer) and daughter ( Bertha Waltzinger) to go in search of him. Meanwhile, as El Capitan, Medigua flirts with Estrelda ( Edna Wallace Hopper), a former viceroy's daughter. When the Spanish army arrives, Medigua leads the rebels in circles until they are too tired to fight. The revolution is put down, but Medigua has some explaining to do to his wife about his flirtation. Notable songs: El Capitan's Song; Sweetheart, I'm Waiting; A Typical Tune of Zanzibar. Sousa's great score and Hopper's superb clowning were in large measure responsible for the success of the original production. “El Capitan's Song,” later known as “El Capitan March,” was the most famous melody to come from a Sousa operetta. In his autobiography Sousa insisted that Klein's libretto was the finest ever written for a comic opera. While that assessment is open to dispute, the book proved durable enough when the work was revived in the 1970s by the Goodspeed Opera House.