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In George and Ira Gershwin’s “Let ‘Em Eat Cake”, a fictional U.S. president denies his lost re-election, reclaims the presidency in a fascist coup and capitalizes on his own dictatorship. Along the way, he launched a business selling blue shirts, turns the Supreme Court into a baseball team and redesigns the White House.
The plot of the Ira and George Gershwin comic musical “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” was written 93 years ago and has not been seen onstage in America in almost as long. Now, Opera Philadelphia is bringing it back in its upcoming 2026-2027 season.
“It’s amazing to think about what these great artists were writing about in 1933 and how it still rings resonant,” said Anthony Roth Costanzo, the company’s general director and president. ”The music itself, when you sing it with operatic voices — just like ‘Porgy and Bess’ — it takes on a really operatic quality.”
“Let ‘Em Eat Cake” flopped when it opened on Broadway to poor reviews, with critics at the time saying the story about a farcical dictatorship “wanders dreamily away into demented unreality.”
It has not been fully staged in America since the original production closed after 90 performances. Costanzo has programmed it for January.
“As we go into the midterm elections, we can be really responsive to the moment we’re in,” he said. “To have an opera that feels so pertinent to what’s going on and what people are thinking about and talking about on both sides, it feels like a cathartic, hilarious, terrifying reflection. Opera’s goal is to make you feel things, and I think this is going to make people feel a lot of things.”
“Let ‘Em Eat Cake” was written as the sequel to the Gershwins’ wildly popular “Of Thee I Sing,” a satire poking fun at American politics featuring a presidential candidate, who runs on a love platform. “Of Thee I Sing” became the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Its sequel was distinctively darker and more cynical. A New York Times reviewer called it “merciless and mirthless.” The musical did not resonate with Depression-era audiences who, presumedly, were not interested in stories about dictatorships for entertainment, although one song from “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” called “Mine” eventually entered the American songbook.
In 1978, co-writer of the book for “Let ‘Em Eat Cake,” Morrie Ryskind, told The New York Times that “we went for a Marx Brothers kind of lunacy.”
Costanzo said it’s a cartoonish farce, yet also a musical masterpiece.
“When you see that the Supreme Court is made into a baseball team, for example, they do a ‘Sis boom bah!’ cheer, except they replace some of those syllables with ‘Habeas corpus! Ra! Ra! Ra!’” he said. “It is in a way very, very silly and ridiculous. But also, Gershwin writes in all these familiar American tunes that descend into minor key. It’s fascinating musical writing from Gershwin where he’s really telling a story in his music.”
