Gustav Kerker

Gustav Adolph Kerker, also identified in various sources as Gustav or Gustavus Kerker, was a Broadway composer, conductor, and book writer born on February 28, 1857, in Herford, Kingdom of Prussia. He died on June 29, 1923, at his home at 565 West 169th Street in New York City following an attack of apoplexy, at the age of 66. Among his Broadway credits are the musicals The Girl from Utah, The Billionaire, The Blonde in Black, Fascinating Flora, and the play The Lady from the Sea.

Kerker began studying the cello at age seven. His family emigrated to the United States in 1867 and settled in Louisville, Kentucky, where he played in pit orchestras at local theatres before transitioning to conducting. His early operetta The Cadets toured the South in 1879. He subsequently relocated to New York City, where he was engaged as principal conductor at the Casino Theatre. In that role, he began inserting his own songs into the scores of foreign operettas that lacked effective copyright protection in the United States, most notably Charles Lecocq's The Pearl of Pekin. His first complete operetta produced in New York was Castles in the Air in 1890.

Over the course of his career Kerker wrote more than twenty shows. Among his earlier credits were Prince Kam, or A Trip to Venus in 1894, with a libretto by Charles Alfred Byrne and Louis Harrison, and Kismet, or Two Tangled Turks in 1895, with a libretto by Richard F. Carroll. In 1896 alone he contributed to three productions: the musical revue In Gay New York, with a libretto by Hugh Morton; The Lady Slavey, with a libretto by George Dance and lyrics by Morton; and An American Beauty, also with a libretto by Morton. The London musical burlesque Little Christopher Columbus, composed with Ivan Caryll to a libretto by George Robert Sims and Cecil Raleigh, reached the stage in 1893 and became one of his more prominent early successes.

Kerker's most celebrated work was The Belle of New York, which opened in 1897 with a libretto by Hugh Morton and became an international hit. That same year he also composed The Whirl of the Town, a musical revue with a libretto by Morton. In 1898 he produced three additional shows: My Estelle, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and The Telephone Girl, all with librettos by Morton. The following year he collaborated with Ludwig Engländer and Reginald De Koven on The Man in the Moon.

The early 1900s brought further Broadway activity. The Girl from Up There, with a libretto by Morton, appeared in 1901. In 1902 Kerker composed The Billionaire, with a libretto by Harry B. Smith. In 1903 he contributed a song, "The Lobster Song (I Was Walking 'Round the Ocean)," to The Wizard of Oz, and also contributed to Winsome Winnie, a production whose music was primarily composed by Harry Paulton with a libretto by Edward Jakobowski. The 1906 season brought The Social Whirl, with a libretto by Charles Doty and Joseph W. Herbert, and The Tourists, with a libretto by R. H. Burnside. In 1907 Kerker composed both The White Hen, with a libretto and lyrics by Roderic C. Penfield and Paul West, and Fascinating Flora, with a libretto by Burnside and Herbert. Two Little Brides, with a libretto by Arthur Anderson and Harold Atteridge, followed in 1912, and in 1921 he returned to his most famous work as the basis for The Whirl of New York, adapted from The Belle of New York with a libretto by Morton and Edgar Smith.

In 1909, German authorities asked Kerker to leave the country on the grounds that he had failed to perform military service in his youth. That same period saw the production of Die oberen Zehntausend, with a libretto by Julius Freund. Kerker was one of nine founding members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, established in 1914.

Kerker was married twice. His first marriage, in 1884, was to Rose Keene, a performer who used the stage name Rose Leighton. He married a second time on June 5, 1908, to Mattie B. Rivenberg, a showgirl who had appeared in the musical Nearly a Hero and who was thirty years his junior.