Bitter Sweet

Bitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts written by Noël Coward. The story, set in 19th century and early 20th century England and Austria-Hungary, centers around a young woman's elopement with her music teacher. Her half-century story of suffering for love focuses on irony instead of sentiment. Of the songs in the show, the best known by far is "I'll See You Again". Another popular song is "If Love Were All".

The piece was first produced in 1929 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, running for a very successful 967 performances. There was a brief Broadway production the same year. Short on memorable Cowardian dialogue, Bitter Sweet nonetheless contains some of Coward's best music, and several recordings of the score are available on CD. The piece has been popular with amateur operatic societies, but there have been few major professional revivals. The operetta was filmed twice, in 1933 in black-and-white (in Britain, with Anna Neagle and Fernand Gravet in the leading roles) and in 1940 in Technicolor by MGM, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. In both cases, the score was heavily cut. Coward disliked the much-rewritten 1940 film and vowed that no more of his plays would be filmed in Hollywood.