Balalaika is a musical play in three acts with book and lyrics by Eric Maschwitz

Eric Maschwitz

Albert Eric Maschwitz OBE , known as Eric Maschwitz and sometimes credited as Holt Marvell, was an English entertainer, writer, broadcaster and broadcasting executive.-Life and work:...

, music by George Posford

George Posford

George Posford, né Benjamin George Ashwell , was an English composer.-Works:Musical theatre* Goodnight, Vienna * Balalaika ; co-composed with Bernard Grün...

 and Bernard Grun. It opened in London at the Adelphi Theatre

Adelphi Theatre

The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...

 on 22 December 1936, starring Muriel Angelus

Muriel Angelus

Muriel Angelus was a British-born stage, musical theatre and film actress.Born Muriel Angelus Findlay London, England to Scottish parentage, she developed a sweet-voiced soprano at an early age...

, Roger Treville, Clifford Mollison and Betty Warren

Betty Warren

Betty Warren was a portrait artist, born in New York City.Betty Warren, known for her bright colorist portraits was one of the top paid female portraitists of the 20th century. Her last formal portrait was of Governor Hugh Carey for the State of New York in 1991. Warren was the daughter of...

, and ran for 569 performances.

A love story between a young nobleman and a ballerina set mostly in Russia during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and the Russian Revolution, it begins and ends in 1924 at a Montmartre

Montmartre

Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...

 night-club called the "Balalaika", telling the lovers' story through a series of flashbacks

Flashback (narrative)

Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...

.

Itself a revised version of an earlier London musical play called The Great Hussar, which opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 19 October 1933, Balalaika formed the basis for the 1939 MGM movie of the same name

Balalaika (film)

Balalaika is a 1939 American musical romance film based on the 1936 London stage musical of the same name. Produced by Lawrence Weingarten and directed by Reinhold Schunzel, it starred Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey....

starring Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey.