The Black Crook is often considered a prototype of the modern musical in that its popular songs and dances are interspersed throughout a unifying play and performed by the actors.

[2] A British production titled The Black Crook, which opened at the Alhambra Theatre in London on December 23, 1872, was an opera bouffe with a new story based on some of the French source material that influenced the New York version, with new music by Frederic Clay and Georges Jacobi.

They saw the Féerie La Biche au bois in Paris, and a pantomime at Astley's Amphitheatre in London, and they wanted to incorporate into their American productions the original elements of spectacle that they saw in those shows.

Meanwhile, Barras, an actor, wrote a melodrama, The Black Crook, with the intention of touring the piece to feature himself and his wife, dancer Sallie St. Clair.

He negotiated the show's New York premiere with William Wheatley, the manager at Niblo's Garden, for a run of 100 performances, which was an extraordinarily long contract for the 1880s.

Jarrett returned to Europe to gather more ideas, decorations and personnel to change the show from Barras's melodrama into a musical piece more like La Biche au bois.

The Black Crook was simply a thrown-together imitation of the French opéra-bouffe féerie, lots of nubile teens in short skirts, a bit of melodrama, and – above all – lashings of moving scenery.

Her army defeats the Count and his evil forces, demons drag Hertzog into hell, and Amina and Rodolphe live happily ever after.

[12] It was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances, and revenues exceeded a record-shattering one million dollars.

[14] The poster announced with great emphasis the presence of a French "Ballet Troupe of Seventy Ladies" choreographed by David Costa.

The dance soloists were two Italian ballerinas from the school of Teatro alla Scala of Milan, Marie Bonfanti and Rita Sangalli, who went on to star in further New York productions.

[16][17] The musical was then toured extensively for decades by Barras and others licensed by him and revived on Broadway in 1870–71, 1871–72, and by The Kiralfy Brothers at Niblo's in 1873; and many more times after that; it also had numerous profitable regional productions and was widely burlesqued.

[18] A British production titled The Black Crook, which opened at the Alhambra Theatre on December 23, 1872, was an opera bouffe based on La Biche au bois, with new music by Frederic Clay and Georges Jacobi.

A 1954 Sigmund Romberg musical, The Girl in Pink Tights, used as its background a story based loosely on the creation of The Black Crook.

[1] According to Doug Reside, a curator at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: The New York Herald published an op-ed piece "condemning" the play for the indecency of the costumes and dancing, suggesting that there may have been "in Sodom and Gomorrah ... such a theatre and spectacle on the Broadway of those doomed cities," and urging those "determined to gaze on the indecent and dazzling brilliancy of the Black Crook" to "provide themselves with a piece of smoked glass."

The moral crusade against the show was taken up by Reverend Charles Smyth who preached a fire and brimstone sermon against it as part of a public lecture series.

[1]Robert C. Allen wrote in his 2000 book, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture, that if Whitton is correct, it was the first such "covert advertising ploy on behalf of the theatre management".