The Theater: New Operetta In Manhattan, Nov. 1, 1948

My Romance (adapted from Edward Sheldon’s Romance; music by Sigmund Romberg; book & lyrics by Rowland Leigh; produced by the Messrs. Shubert) gives the effect, with almost none of the enjoyment, of a huge Thanksgiving dinner. It is operetta at its most oppressive. The audience would not have too bad a time if it simply (like Joan of Arc) heard voices; the Sigmund Romberg songs are conventionally melodious and the singing is quite up to snuff. But otherwise the audience has a great deal to endure.

A late 19th-Century period piece, My Romance tells of the great love between a young Manhattan clergyman and a not very moral Italian diva, and of how, putting love before sex, she nobly renounces him. As enacted by two gauche vocalists, this desire of the cloth for the flame seems about as erotic as compiling an index.