Geoghegan 1

State University of New York at Oneonta

The Black Crook:

America’s First Musical

Lindsey Geoghegan

MUSC 126 – American Musical Theatre Section 1

Professor Colby Thomas

17 September 2019
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When hearing about musical theatre in the present, the names, Hamilton, The Phantom of

the Opera, Les Misérables, and Wicked all come to mind. Broadway is an already large and

constantly growing part of American culture but it’s rare to stop and think about how it has come

to fruition and where it began. Although “musicals” were already an ordinary spectacle on

Broadway by the 1860’s, it was highly uncommon for these productions to attain even a dozen

performances. Broadway needed something new and interesting. New and interesting is exactly

what Broadway got with its first “mega-hit musical,” The Black Crook.

The Black Crook is set in 1600 in the Harz Mountains of Germany. The evil, wealthy

Count Wolfenstein wants to marry the beautiful village girl, Amina. The Count places Amina’s

fiancé, Rodolphe, an impoverished artist, into the grasp of Hertzog, a crook-backed master of

black magic. This is where the name, The Black Crook, comes from. Hertzog is promised to stay

alive on the condition that he delivers the devil, Zamiel, a fresh soul every New Year’s Eve. As

an oblivious Rodolphe is being led to his dreadful destiny, he stumbles upon buried treasure and

saves a struggling dove’s life. The dove magically turns into the Fairy Queen of the Golden

Realm, Stalacta, who was posing as the dove. Stalacta rewards Rodolphe by taking him to the

fairyland, where she helps him reunite with Amina. The Fairy Queen then sends her army and

defeats the Count. Hertzog is dragged down to hell while Amina and Rodolphe live happily ever

after. The Black Crook includes components of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust and Carl

Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz as well as other popular works.

Countless circumstances drove The Black Crook to its sensational success. Part of the process

was the location in which it was performed. Located at Broadway and Prince Street in

Manhattan, New York, Niblo’s Garden was built in 1828 by William Niblo as part of an

entertainment complex that included an outdoor garden. Niblo’s Garden hosted P.T. Barnum’s
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first ever exhibition, labeling his entry into showbusiness. The theater was destroyed by a fire on

September 18, 1846 and was not rebuilt until three years later. The new theater sat about 3,200

people and seats were sold at 2$ each. After the civil war, in 1866, businesses boomed as the

amount of working and middle-class people in New York skyrocketed. On the other hand, the

upper class was on the lookout for entertainment and the manager of Niblo’s Garden, William

Wheatley, was stuck trying to look for ideas to keep his theater in business. It was discovered in

the form of light comedies including The Black Crook. Niblo’s Garden showcased The Black

Crook’s lesser known sequel, The White Fawn as well (Demolished Broadway Theatres - M to

O Kenrick). Wheatley had a stroke of luck with the unfortunate fire that burnt down the

Academy of Music. An expensive Parisian ballet troupe was meant to perform there along with

stunning set pieces. In the course of those events, Wheatley reached an agreement with Henry

C. Jarrett and Harry Palmer, the promoters of the Academy of Music, to have the ballet troupe

perform at Niblo’s Garden (1860s: The Black Crook Kenrick). The Black Crook’s plot was

mindless, and the music was uninteresting, but the special effects were spectacular, and the main

selling point was the ballet troupe of women, who were dressed in tight, nude colored costumes.

This guaranteed contention within society. But with contention comes success. The Black

Crook was so lucrative because of “the simple expedient of showing the female leg to its best

advantage. Nudity as a selling point had already appeared at the very inception of dancing, when

female dancers and mimes performed naked at Roman entertainments. In America in the last

half of the nineteenth century the very whisper of even the most minimal advance in eroticism

was enough to affect the box office substantially,” (Musical! A Grand Tour Flinn 83). “The eye-

popping sight of one hundred bare-limbed beautiful girls in an outrageously scandalous new

costume: flesh-colored silk tights,” was enough to make The Black Crow soar in popularity
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(Flinn 82). The production earned over a million dollars, performing 475 times over

approximately a year and half. “The production also gained considerable notoriety from

outraged clergymen and blue-nosed citizens who called publicly for censorship of the scanty

costumes of the dancers. Customers sometimes came in disguise to avoid being identified by

their neighbors” 82. Part of the show’s success was the fact that the Civil War had only just

ended a few years before. There were many proper women, who after the war “no longer felt

tied to their homes and could attend the theatre. This substantially increased the potential

audience for popular entertainment throughout the United States. Even so, some "respectable"

women attended The Black Crook heavily veiled,” (Kenrick). The development of the American

railroad also aided the success of The Black Crook. After its time in New York, the production

toured for three decades throughout the United States. Trains made “it easier and more

affordable for large productions to tour with elaborate sets and costumes,” (Kenrick). The Black

Crook is categorized as the American musical for a few reasons. The production includes

“newly written songs with previously adapted music,” (Broadway’s First Musical: The Black

Crook Young). The Black Crook’s music utilized “the work[s] of several currently popular

composers,” (Flinn 82). One of the songs that was commissioned to fit the dancers into the

show, “You Naughty, Naughty Men” was “the first hit song to be driven by a,” production

(Flinn 82). Because of the popularity of the song, The Black Crook is considered a musical. An

additional reason is the show had a clear beginning, middle, and end even though it ran for five

and a half hours on its opening night (Flinn 82). There are plenty of factors that contributed to

the success of The Black Crow.

Musical Theater production takes a significant amount of people to even achieve success.

Beginning with The Black Crook’s playwright, Charles M. Barras. He was born on March 17th,
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1808 in England and died on March 31st, 1873 at 65 years old in Hartford, Connecticut. At first,

Barras “objected to having his play cheapened by the addition of scantily clad dancers,”

(Broadway Theatre History: The Black Crook, the Play that Was Not the First Musical Mroczka).

William Wheatley gave him “a $1,500 bonus” to continue on with the adaption of the show

(Kenrick). William Wheatley was born into a family of actors and made his Broadway debut at

just ten years old “as Albert, in William Tell,” (Wallet of Time, Containing Personal,

Biographical, and Critical Reminiscence of the American ... Theatre Winter 178). After a few

more successful roles like Hamlet and Romeo, Wheatley moved on to managing theatres. After

acting and managing at the Arch street theatre in Philadelphia until 1861, he leased Niblo’s

Garden, and managed it until 1868. Wheatley transformed Niblo’s Garden into a first-class

theater. It was under his management and producing that The Black Crook found its success.

Thomas Baker was a violinist who came to the U.S from England in 1853. He is credited with

writing the music for The Black Crook, he also arranged musical productions of Cinderella and

Aladdin. Giuseppe Operti was born in 1824 and died December 7th, 1886. Operti was “pianist to

his majesty Victor Emmanuel 2nd, last King of Italy, a performer, teacher, and composer” in the

United States (Ephemera Relating to Giuseppe Operti). Giuseppe wrote “some incidental music

and gathered the songs from local music shops,” (Flinn 82). Both Operti and Baker are both

credited for writing or obtaining the music used in The Black Crook.

There is an ongoing debate between Historians about whether The Black Crook is the first

American “musical”. Some say yes because of its inclusion of music and dance, and because its

obvious beginning, middle, and end. Others say no, because despite the fact that it had both song

and dance as well as a plot, none of it was cohesive. The songs were not explicitly created for

the production and the dance routines were there to take attention away from the inane plot.
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There is circle of historians who prefer to call The Black Crook an “extravaganza,” rather than a

musical. No matter what, The Black Crook brought a unique and appealing aspect to musical

theater culture in the twentieth century.

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Works Cited

“Ephemera Relating to Giuseppe Operti.” Ephemera Relating to Giuseppe Operti,

archives.nypl.org/mus/20107.

Flinn, Denny Martin. Musical!: a Grand Tour: the Rise, Glory, and Fall of an American
Institution. Schirmer Books, 1997.

Kenrick, John. “1860s: The Black Crook.” Stage 1860s: The Black Crook, 1996,
www.musicals101.com/1860to79.htm#The%20Black%20Crook.

Kenrick, John. “Demolished Broadway Theatres - M to O.” Demolished Broadway Theatres - M

to O, www.musicals101.com/bwaypast4.htm#Niblo's.

Kenrick, John. “Who's Who in Musicals:” Who's Who in Musicals: Addendum 2003, 2003,
www.musicals101.com/who28.htm#Wheatley.

Mroczka, Paul. “Tag Archives: William Wheatley.” Broadway Scene, 15 June 2013,
broadwayscene.com/tag/william-wheatley/.

Winter, William. Wallet of Time, Containing Personal, Biographical, and Critical Reminiscence
of the American ... Theatre. FORGOTTEN Books, 2015.

Young, Greg, and Tom Meyers. “Broadway's First Musical: The Black Crook.” The Bowery
Boys: New York City History, 12 Sept. 2016,
www.boweryboyshistory.com/2007/11/broadways-first-musical-black-crook.html.