Latest Articles
The 40th Bundeswettbewerb Gesang Berlin – With The Stars Of Tomorrow
Bundeswettbewerb Gesang Berlin celebrated its 40th anniversary this year with a musical/chanson themed contest. The gala concert of the finalists
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Maury Yeston Meets Julian Slade. Or: “Amélie” At London’s The Other Palace
Amélie is a charming, whimsical, musical, based on a 2001 French Film, which was originally (2015) staged in California, and
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Gershwin’s Political Satire “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” At MasterVoices
Artistic Director Ted Sperling conducted a splendid concert reading of George and Ira Gershwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1933 musical Of Thee
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Victor Herbert’s “The Debutante” (1914) Resurrected In New York
When Victor Herbert’s musical comedy The Debutante premiered in New York in 1914, it had the misfortune to occur the
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Jean Gilbert (1879-1942) As Part Of The New “Cindy & Bert” Show At Tipi Am Kanzleramt
Composer Jean Gilbert (1879-1942) might have been one of the most successful German operetta stars in the pre-WW1 years, he
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“Casta Diva”: The World’s First Gay Opera Guide With Two Operettas And Some Hidden Porn
So here it is, the world’s “first gay opera guide,” or so the publisher claims. It’s a small Berlin based
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Bringing Back Abraham: “Märchen Im Grand Hotel” At Staatstheater Hannover
It’s hard to believe, but this is actually only the second fully staged production of Paul Abraham’s Märchen im Grand
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Francisco Barbieri’s “Barberillo de Lavapies”: The Classic BBC Recording In English
This is totally delightful! Francisco Barbieri (1823-94) was the leading exponent of the zarzuela revival of the mid-19th century. He
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Leo Fall’s “Die Dollarprinzessin” With Ulf Schirmer From Munich
As part of their ongoing Leo Fall series, the label cpo has released a full cast album of Die Dollarprinzessin,
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The Songs Of Reynaldo Hahn On Palazzetto Bru Zane
For many, he’s just another famous representative of the Belle Époque, but there are few people that really know much
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Heymann, Offenbach & Ábrahám: New Albums And Concerts With The Capitol Symphony Orchestra
Here’s something truly special: an album of Werner Richard Heymann’s symphonic music that has not been available acoustically earlier and
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The Victor Herbert World Says Goodbye To Restorationist Quade Winter (1951-2019)
The Victor Herbert world says goodbye to one of its restorationists. Quade Winter of Pendleton, Oregon, died of cardiac arrest
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The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players Give “Iolanthe” A Top Notch Performance
New York’s longest running professional Gilbert & Sullivan company returned to the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (near Lexington Avenue)
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Dagmar Manzel’s New Solo Album “Sehnsucht” – With Three Paul Abraham Tracks
The fact that Dagmar Manzel has been involved in the Weimar Republic operetta revival at Komische Oper Berlin from the
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“Mary Poppins” As London’s Unashamedly Old-Fashioned Christmas Spectacle
Mary Poppins is an unashamedly old-fashioned “feel-good musical,” at times very pantomimic in style, at times almost a “nostalgic operetta”
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The Revival Of Burlesque In Times Of Gender Debates: “Die 5 Glorreichen Sieben”
They are certainly five magnificent cowboys, but with a twist. The fact that they dance an Offenbach pas de deux
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Ready For Her Close-Up: Desirée Nick In “Gräfin Mariza” At Staatstheater Wiesbaden
There’s exciting news coming from Wiesbaden, Germany. The local Hessisches Staatstheater is presenting a new Gräfin Mariza production, directed by
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F. C. Burnand’s “Ixion”: The Original British Burlesque Hit Of 1863
I first came seriously in contact with F. C. Burnand’s burlesque, Ixion, when working on my biography of burlesque megastar,
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The 2020 Seasons At Léhar Festival In Bad Ischl And In Mörbisch
The operetta festival in Bad Ischl has ended its 2019 summer season with an 8 percent increase in audience numbers,
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“Mr. Offenbach Writes To Us”: Letters To Le Figaro And Other Texts
In their September newsletter, The Jacques Offenbach Society alerts its readers to a new book edited by Jean-Claude Yon. It’s
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“Offenbach Colorature”: The Award-Winning Solo Album By Jodie Devos
Any solo album that starts off by knocking you on the head with the boisterous couplet of the animal trainer
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The Walking Dead? “Operetta Made In Austria” With Ildiko Raimondi and Herbert Lippert
It’s a pretty grand claim to make: “With their multi-media stage show Operetta Made in Austria stage stars Ildiko Raimondi
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Operetta Between The Two World Wars: International Musicological Symposium In Ljubljana
The staging of musical-dramatic works in the late nineteenth century was dominated by operetta, which effectively dictated the programmes of
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Naive Charm: Christine Bovill’s “Tonight You Belong To Me”
A scratchy, smoky voice with a Scottish accent, and a piano: Christine Bovill’s latest show at Bar jeder Vernunft
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Body Shaming In The Operetta World: Or The Cry For Help From Soprano Kathryn Lewek
In his novel Where Angels Fear to Tread, published in 1905, E. M. Forster describes a performance of Lucia di
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Gilbert & Sullivan At Wilton’s Music Hall: An “HMS Pinafore” Performance To Remember
Wilton’s Music Hall is “the most important surviving early music hall to be seen anywhere” (says the Theatres Trust) and
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Dangerous When Wet: Offenbach’s Rediscovered “Le Royaume de Neptune” From the 1874 “Orphée Aux Enfers”
When Germany’s ultra-conservative Offenbach crusader Peter Hawig – who in a recent Jacques Offenbach Society newsletter remarked that “tying” the
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Red Stars: A Study And Exhibition About Socialist Showbiz In Hungary
Operetta appears more and more frequently in scientific discourse, but what about revues and variety shows? It’s a new field
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Evelin Förster Presents: “Sommerfrische (Bade)Chansons” From 1910–1930
The heat wave is back, in Germany at least. And the only appropriate way to cool off – operetta style!
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Offenbach On Arte TV: “Orphée aux enfers” From Salzburg and “Gerolstein” From Cologne
You might wonder whether they are serious – ‘them’ being the French-German Kultursender arte. They are celebrating the 200th birthday
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Ohio Light Opera: Offering Rarities From Kálmán’s “Teufelsreiter” to Novello’s “Perchance to Dream”
Fans of musical theater and operetta will not find a richer, more concentrated banquet of their favorite entertainment than that
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Francesca Zambello’s Version of “Showboat” At Glimmerglass Festival
Showboats gave the theatre-starved people along the Mississippi from the 1880s into the 1920s what they most wanted: melodrama and
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German Operetta On Broadway And In The West End: 1900 To 1940
Considering that there are not that many new books on operetta in English, one must greet Derek B. Scott’s fresh-off-the-press
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“Maestro Offenbach – au grand galop!” A Farewell Book For Albert Gier
Prof. Albert Gier is one of the most famous researchers of musical theater text books. He taught at the University
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“The Pa! The Ma! And the Shah!”: Offenbach’s “Island of Tulipatan” As A “Persian Operatic Bouffonerie”
The one-act l‘île de Tulipatan, written by Jacques Offenbach with his librettists Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru in 1868 for
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Diversity Of Questions & Multiplicity Of Approaches: Kaspar Maase’s “Einführung in die Populärkulturforschung”
How do you solve a problem like – operetta? The question has been asked many times over, especially since so
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