“Cheer Up! British Musical Films 1929-1945” By Adrian Wright
In a preface to Cheer Up! British Musical Films 1929-1945, author Adrian Wright tells us that British Film Studios made
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Lehár’s “Cloclo” (1924) On CD & DVD From The Ischl Festival And Ohio Light Opera
Franz Lehár’s 1924 operetta Cloclo is not one of his more famous titles, and it hasn’t stayed in the repertoire
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Adolf Wohlbrück or Anton Walbrook? A Retrospective In Berlin & A New Book From Vienna
Wohlbrück or Walbrook? Adolf or Anton? Whatever you choose to call him, the actor known under two names was one
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Kálmán’s “Hollandweibchen” Comes To You As “The Little Dutch Girl” On DVD
Kálmán’s 1920 Viennese hit Das Hollandweibchen is a special work that marks a turning point in the composer’s long career.
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Offenbach’s Final Farewell: “Die Schöne Lurette” (1880) In Two DDR Versions
As the times of self-isolation continue, so does the catching up on old and new operetta releases that I’ve been
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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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Ábrahám’s “Roxy und ihr Wunderteam” At Komische Oper Berlin: Watch The Live-Stream
At Komische Oper Berlin, Paul Ábrahám’s ‘last’ operetta premiered in a new production by Stefan Huber, with a newly arranged
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“Oh… Rosalinda!”: The Movie Version of “Die Fledermaus” With Adolf Wohlbrück On DVD
Finally – and that’s really the only appropriate word for it: finally the updated 1950s movie version of Die Fledermaus,
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Jonas Kaufmann And Franz Welser-Möst Present “Die Fledermaus” In Dresden
Does the world really need another Fledermaus recording? Absolutely, yes! There are many glorious versions available already with singularly good
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Berlin Babylon. Or: A New “Die Tote Stadt” at Komische Oper By Robert Carson
Is Korngold’s 1920 psycho thriller Die tote Stadt an operetta? Obviously not, but there are various links to the genre,
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Updating “Die Csardasfürstin” For Vienna: Peter Lund’s New Volksoper Production
It can be exciting to re-imagine and re-interpret beloved shows: we are witnessing this, again and again, in modern musical
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Andreas Homoki’s “Land des Lächelns” From Zurich: Starring Piotr Beczala
Everyone knows that Lehár had a not-so-secret longing for the ‘grand operatic’ and devoted the latter part of his long
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Message In A Bottle? YouTube As Global Popular Home-Archive For Operetta
In a 2018 essay entitled Das Webvideo als Flaschenpost, or “the web video as message in a bottle,” Chris Tedjasukmana
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The First Sperm-Donor Operetta: How “Axel an der Himmelstür” Became “Liebespremiere” In 1943
The Hollywood spoof Axel an der Himmelstür, with music by Ralph Benatzky, premiered at the Theater an der Wien in
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“Ritter Blaubart” At Komische Oper: Stefan Herheim’s Varieté Vanitas
Yes, it was a good idea to bring back Offenbach’s murderous Barbe-Bleue to Berlin at Komische Oper where, you will
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E. A. Dupont’s “Das alte Gesetz”. Or: What #MeToo Has To Do With Operetta And Offenbach
When we talk about popular musical theater our modern focus is mostly on the ‘artistic’ values of individual shows, e.g.
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Jerome Kern’s “Have A Heart” From The Ohio Light Opera
If we go back in time 100 years and look at Broadway, we witness a change: the US entertainment market
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An Overdose Of Nostalgia: The Arthaus TV Operetta Series
Can this really be happening, is Arthaus-Unitel seriously re-issuing all of these old TV operetta adaptations from the early 1970s
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Re-Thinking The Concept Of “Escapism”: Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land”
This month, Damien Chazelle’s movie musical La La Land hits theaters in Europe. It is a must-see for anyone interested
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Erich von Stroheim’s “The Merry Widow” At The Staatsoperette Dresden
Some years ago I was asked by the former Dutch Film Museum (renamed Eye Film Institute today) to accompany The
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“Al cavallino bianco”: The 1954 Italian Film Version Starring Rosy Barsony
As everyone knows, by now, there are many White Horse Inn incarnations out there, and it seems more and more
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World Premiere Recording: Kálmán’s “The Little King” From Ohio
Could any musical comedy from 1912 be more up-to-date from today’s war-on-terror-perspective? This is the story of a revolution of
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“Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde”: Hervé’s Masterwork Rediscovered
French composer Hervé (1825-1892) has been so overshadowed by his competitor, friend and contemporary Jacques Offenbach that hardly anyone remembers
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A Live-Stage “Show Boat” On DVD: For The First Time?
When the San Francisco Opera puts on a show like Show Boat it raises expectations. The company has a chorus
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A New “Duchess of Chicago” From Ohio Light Opera
As everyone knows, the Ohio Light Opera is one of the prime performance venues for lesser known works of Emmerich
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“Moscow, Cheryomushki”: Remembering Russian Operetta
It’s a grand day in Moscow today, filled with military parades. Perhaps it’s the appropriate time to remember one of
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“The Only Music Worth Listening To Is Operetta”? Re-Visiting Elizabeth Taylor
There is always time for a few little curiosities. Take, for example, the movie Cynthia (1947) starring Elizabeth Taylor –
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4 For 45: Operetta Movie Classics On Sale At Warner
It is not quite an “indecent proposal,” as in the 1993 Robert Redford movie. But still, it’s a stunning offer:
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Reynaldo Hahn’s Magical “Ciboulette” From The Opéra Comique In Paris
Did anyone ever wonder what happened to Rodolfo after Mimi’s death? Truth be told, I did not. At least not
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A Pure Joy: “Die Fledermaus” As A Ballet From La Scala
It certainly is a little unusual: a ballet version by Roland Petit of the Johann Strauss classic Die Fledermaus. Filmed
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“The Desert Song”: A Glorious Technicolor Version on DVD for the First Time
Sigmund Romberg’s North Africa spectacle The Desert Song “is arguably the best of the group of romantic operettas that found
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Italian Sex Spectacles: Operettas By Carlo Lombardo & Co.
Half the world loves Italian music, whether it’s popular songs of the „Volare“ type or operas from Rossini to Verdi
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Luis Mariano : “L’eternel enchanteur”
The DVD L’eternel enchanteur is no compilation of movie fragments as the titles on the sleeve notes seem to suggest.
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“One Touch of Venus” from 1955
In the latest newsletter from the Kurt Weill Foundation, there’s a review of the new One Touch of Venus recording,
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“Im weißen Rössl” Revisited
Most Germans are familiar-very familiar-with the White Horse Inn. That’s because the film version starring Peter Alexander and Waltraud Haas
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At the Cross-Roads? A New “Bettelsstudent” from Mörbisch on DVD
As of 2013, the Austrian operetta festival in Mörbisch—near the Hungarian border—has a new director. Dagmar Schellenberger replaced Harald Serafin
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