Paul Abraham’s “Dschainah – Das Mädchen aus dem Tanzhaus” Revived After 84 Years
If expectations are exceptionally high for a Paul Abraham operetta at Komische Oper Berlin that’s because, in the past, the
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“Follies” Set In Socialist East Germany: Sondheim At Staatsoperette Dresden
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies is the Mt. Everest of US-American musical theatre, his most searching and self-reflexive study of the genre
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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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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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“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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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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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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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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Offenbach Double-Treat in London: “La belle Hélène” and “Orpheus in the Underworld”
With the BBC Proms totally ignoring Offenbach’s bicentenary, it has been left to London’s music colleges, small scale opera companies
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“Das Feuerwerk” by Paul Burkhard & Erik Charell At Musikalische Komödie Leipzig
When I was about eight years old I have vivid memories of my mother doing the housework, continually singing “Oh,
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Emmerich Kálmán’s “Die Bajadere” At The Summer Festival Of Neustrelitz
Imagine sitting under the stars in a beautiful German Schlossgarten, totally relaxed, watching a hugely enjoyable operetta by Emmerich Kálmán
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Offenbach At 200: “Madame Favart” At The Opéra-Comique In Paris
Would Brother Jacob have been amused? In any case, the Parisian Opéra-Comique (with a hyphen, meaning the actual opera house,
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A New “Madame Pompadour” At Musikalische Komödie, Leipzig
The 1922 Madame Pompadour is not only one of Leo Fall’s last stage works (he died in 1925), it is
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The Devil In All Of Us: Suppé’s “Teufel auf Erden” (1878) In Chemnitz
With all the attention being given to Offenbach, it is easy to forget that 2019 is also the bicentenary of
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Offenbach’s “König Karotte” In Hannover: Farewell To The Production By Matthias Davids
German regional theatres excel in searching out rarely performed stage works and often breathing new life into them. Le Roi
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“Shooting Star” World-Premiere In Los Angeles: A “Revealing New Musical” by Florian Klein, Thomas Zaufke & Erik Ransom
With an Offenbach conference coming up in June in Cologne that includes a section dedicated to “Discourses and Identities” and
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“La Princesse de Trebizonde”: Revisiting The Offenbach Production In Hildesheim
The World Heritage city of Hildesheim, 20 miles south-east of Hannover, possesses a charming, intimate, 600-seater theatre staging opera, musicals
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Howard Goodall’s “The Hired Man” At Queen’s Theatre: “A Serious Musical About Ordinary People”
In November 2018 I reviewed a concert performance of Howard Goodall’s Girlfriends, recommending his previous musical The Hired Man which
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Benatzky’s “Meine Schwester und ich” At Volksoper Wien
Benatzky’s 1930 hit Meine Schwester und ich in a new Wien Volksoper production is totally delightful and enchantingly charming. More
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“Sweethearts” (1913) Performed By The Victor Herbert Renaissance Project Live!
This admirable young company finished its fifth season with Victor Herbert’s hit, Sweethearts, which opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre
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A New “Man of La Mancha” at ENO and Volksoper
Not seen in London since its original production at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1968, when it starred Keith Michell as
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Kurt Weill’s “Lady in the Dark” Revived At City Center in New York
Gertrude Lawrence’s 1941 megahit, Lady in the Dark, groundbreaking in its day for its then novel use of psychoanalysis in
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“Kismet” And Racist Stereotypes: The 1953 Wright/Forrest Show In Neustrelitz
Is the ‘Musical Arabian Night’ in two acts by George Forrest and Robert Wright an operetta, with recycled music from
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Ass-Dur At Bar jeder Vernunft. Or: “Les deux aveugles” Reloaded
In his new book Der Klang von Paris – “The Sound(s) of Paris” – Volker Hagedorn embarkes on “a trip
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“Orpheus in der Unterwelt” 1860: Johann Nestroy im Carl-Theater Wien
Sie haben wirklich alle Macht und allen Einfluß verloren, die hohen olympischen Herrschaften, die da saßen „auf goldenen Stühlen“, und
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Joseph Beer’s “Polnische Hochzeit” at Oper Graz: Simply Superb!
Austrian-Jewish composer Joseph Beer’s operetta Polnische Hochzeit (‘Polish Wedding’) received its premiere in Zurich in 1937: it was quickly translated
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Pasquale Aleardi & The Power Of Anti-Depressant Music
“Shake your banana!” At the table in front of me, six women screamed this internally even when Pasquale Aleardi was
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Lehár’s “Juxheirat” Or: “The Mock Marriage” In Santa Barbara
First, I learned that Michael and Nan Miller had bequeathed their extraordinary Operetta Archive to the University of California at
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New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players: “Ages Ago” & “Mr. Jericho”
New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’s inspired pairing of two Victorian one-act comic operas – Ages Ago and Mr. Jericho
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Victor Herbert Renaissance Project Live: “Falling in Love For 160 Years”
VHRP Live’s love-themed concert may have been the company’s best yet, not forgetting such earlier gems as Son of Dublin
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“Die Prinzessin von Trapezunt” in Hildesheim: Ist das Operette 4.0?
So viel vorweg: Dass in Hildesheim Offenbachs einstiger Sensationserfolg Die Prinzessin von Trapezunt (1869) nach Jahrzehnten des Vergessens wieder auf
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