“Katharine Mehrling in Berlin” – The Promise of an Operetta Album to Come?

This week, Katharine Mehrling is back at Bar jeder Vernunft in Berlin with a program called 6 Nächte in Berlin, presenting her new CD of chansons and blues songs. With a slight hint of an operetta album that she’s so far never recorded, but teases she will release one day.

Mehrling made a major operetta splash when she first appeared in Barrie Kosky’s production of Abraham’s Ball im Savoy in 2013 at Komische Oper, as the emancipated jazz composer Daisy Darlington, a Rosy Barsony role that fitted her like a glove. She returned to a major starring operetta role at Komische Oper with Arizona Lady where she sang the dominating “Sunshine Ranch” owner Lona Farrell next to Serkan Kaya as cowboy Roy Dexter. A dream pair. And a dream interpretation of the 1950s Kalman score, that was enhanced with the luscious “Sigh By Night” from Kalman’s 1945 Broadway hit Marinka.

While singing the songs from her new jazz album Katharine Mehrling in Berlin – 14 tracks ranging from “Alone Together” and “Glory of Love” to “Straßen von Berlin”, “Illusionen” and “Gracias a la vida” – she added a medley of her greatest stage hits as an encore. This included snippets of “Sigh By Night”, the “Kangaroo Fox” by Abraham, and some Heymann which she had sung as Lilian in Die Drei von der Tankstelle as well as on her recent disc Werner Richard Heymann – Leben und Lieder, where her husband Tilmar Kuhn reads Heymann texts, while Mehrling sings his music. Live in concert she included “Das gibt’s nur einmal” in Yiddish at Bar jeder Vernunft, and various other great songs such as “Exodus” and “Seeräuberjenny”, not included on the disc.

Sitting in the audience at Bar jeder Vernunft and hearing this encore-medley made me painfully aware how much I miss a operetta album by Mehrling, where that wonderfully versatile and expressive voice celebrates those glorious songs for the jazz age of operetta and beyond, including Arizona Lady (which was sadly not recorded when she and Kaya did it at Komische Oper in 2014).

When I posted that thought on Instagram, Mehrling replied in a private message “Operettensongs a ma manière … kommt … irgendwann”. So there is hope and something to look forward to. I asked her if I may quote her words here, and she gave her okay.

Till that operetta album arrives, the new disc with live and studio recordings is a glorious way to pass the time while we wait, with a small band (Ferdinand von Seebach at the piano, plus Jo Gehlmann and Stephan Genze at the guitar and drums, alternating with HD Lorenz and Olaf Casimir) and with cool arrangements. The sadness and longing in the jazz standards is deeply moving here, the slight crack in the voice in “Streets of Berlin” with music by Paul Hankinson and the self-assured bite in “Simply Katharine” (in case you don’t know how to spell “Katharine” correctly) all make this disc rewarding listening. With a strong melancholic vibe.