Revisting “Au Dahomey” (1892). Or: A Blackface King Béhazin?
I came upon this grand 1892 poster this week… I didn’t know anything about the show, my experience of the
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Fly Me To The Moon: Kurt Kurt Gänzl reviews the new “Le Voyage dans la lune”
A new recording from Bru Zane? After their tremendous job with La Fille de Madame Angot, I am all agog.
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“Le Voyage Dans La Lune”: Offenbach’s 1875 Sci-Fi Spectacle
Three years and eight major shows after the splenditious production of Le Roi Carotte, Offenbach returned to the world of
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“Die Kino-Königin”: Operette in 3 Acts by Jean Gilbert
Jean Gilbert’s operetta with the original libretto by Georg Okonkowski premiered on 22 November 1912 at Deutsches Operettentheater, Hamburg, as
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“Lachende Erben“, Or: Another Weinberger?
Carl [Rudolf Michael] Weinberger was born in Vienna on 3 April, 1861, and he died there on 1 November, 1939.
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42nd Street: The First Complete Recording
I have just been on a very, very happy trip down memory boulevard. For a couple of years of my
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Remembering Musical Theater Historian David Hummel
This isn’t an obituary. No facts. I never met Dave, though we have been in touch for half a century.
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Kurt Gänzl’s “The Musical: A Concise History” Revisited & Revised
The original edition of Kurt Gänzl’s The Musical came out in 1997, as a “Concise History” published by Northeastern University
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“Nanon, die Wirtin vom Goldenen Lamm“: Richard Genée‘s 1877 Hit Revisited
This operette in 3 acts by F Zell is based on the comédie-vaudeville Nanon, Ninon et Madame de Maintenon by
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Kurt Gänzl’s “Gilbert and Sullivan: The Players and the Plays”
I feel very honoured and flattered to have been asked to write about the most important book to be written
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“La Fille de Madame Angot” On Palazzetto Bru Zane: A Recording Of Reference From Now On
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a young lady radio or TV ‘interviewer’ asked me: what was
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Offenbach’s “Ein Ehemann vor der Tür”: A New Student Production In Leipzig
The students of Leipzig’s Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Hochschule had planned to put on Offenbach’sUn Mari à la Porte / Ein
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CIBOULETTE: Opérette in 3 acts by Reynaldo Hahn
The most successful stage musical work of Reynaldo Hahn, Ciboulette was written to a text by two of the most
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“Bitte Britisch”: Wenn Frankensteins Monster die Hose runterlässt
Vermutlich kennen Fans der Mel-Brooks-Filme den ekstatischen Liebesschrei „A Sweet Mystery of Life“ besser als die meisten Operettenfans hierzulande. Denn
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“Bitte Britisch”: Staatsoperette Dresden Takes Us On A Musical Journey
I was surprised, and delighted, to hear that the Staatsoperette Dresden are to give an all-“Britisch” concert, taking in a
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Fancy A Slice Of Gänzl? “Gilbert & Sullivan: The Players And The Plays”
I’m the oldest standing member of the Operetta Research Center. I was one of the fairies who presided at its
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What A Voyage! Historic “La Fille de Madame Angot” Recordings In English, French & Italian
The sky is blue, the sun is shining, the waves are tinkling on the shore a hundred metres from me
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Constance Drever: Creating “La Veuve joyeuse” With A Strong English Accent
The history of Die lustige Witwe has fascinated us, here at the Operetta Research Center, immensely over the past months.
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“V’lan dans l’oeil”: Folie musicale in 3 acts by Hervé
Hervé’s second attempt, after Les Chevaliers de la table ronde (1866), to produce a full-length burlesque opérette to challenge the
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Hervé’s “L’œil crevé” (1867) On YouTube: Live From L’Opéra de Bordeaux
Hervé’s 1867 opéra bouffe L’œil crevé (literally “The pierced eye” or “It hit me right in the eye”) was first
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Offenbach’s Singing Cannibals On The Radio As “Das gräuliche Festmahl” For Easter
The Berlin based “collective for contemporary operette*” which calls itself Tutti d*Amore presented their take on Offenbach’s 1857 one-acter Vent-du-soir
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Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947): Only One Enduring Score?.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 9 August, 1874, Reynaldo Hahn was the elegant, soigné composer whose work for the French
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COX AND BOX, or The Long Lost Brothers: Musical Triumviretta In 1 Act With Music By Arthur Sullivan
This Musical triumviretta in 1 act was adapted from J Maddison Morton’s farce Box and Cox by F C Burnand,
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“Cox & Box – The Film”: A Christmas Special From The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players
I’m an old conservative. I was ‘a little con-ser-va-tive’ (as opposed to a ‘little li-ber-al’) from the moment I was
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PASSIONNÉMENT! Comédie Musicale in 3 Acts with Music by André Messager
On 13 December, 2020, the Bavarian radio station BR-Klassik will broadcasts a live performance of André Messager‘s ‘comédie musicale’ Passionnément!
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“Popular Music Theatre Under Socialism”: Operettas & Musicals In The Eastern European States 1945-1990
Yesterday, a surprising book arrived on my desk: Popular Music Theatre Under Socialism. I guessed straight away that we weren’t
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Why oh why oh why oh! Burleycue in Ohio: “The Bandbox Revue” Of 1922
This picture looked to me like a rather nice American girlie entertainment from the Twenties. Wonder what it is, thought
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A Naughty Gaiety Girl …
When you ‘live’ in a certain ‘world’ – in my case, that of the 19th century musical theatre – you
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Ivan Caryll & The Heyday Of The Gaiety Musical Comedy
Ivan Caryll was the principal composer and conductor for the heyday of the Gaiety musical comedy who encouraged the development
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A Legendary American Burlesque: “Evangeline” (1874), Beautiful Country Girls & A Dancing Heifer
A burlesque of Longfellow’s poem of the same name, the extravaganza Evangeline followed the trials and tribulations of its heroine
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Jeanette MacDonald (1901-1965): Hollywood’s Most Successful Soprano Star Of Celluloid Operetta
After beginning her singing career as a teenager in the chorus of a New York revue, Miss MacDonald (born in
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Lily Elsie (1886-1962): Becoming “The Most Photographed Woman In The World”
A child of mysterious origins (she was rumoured, when fame came, to have been the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat
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Broadway Producer Henry W. Savage (1859-1927): “Merry Widow” and “Sari” Were His Greatest Hits
Harvard-educated Henry Wilson Savage was born in New Durham (New Hampshire) on 21 March 1859 and well established as a
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Ethel Jackson (1877-1957): Broadway’s First “Merry Widow”
A descendant of the painter Henry Inman, Miss Jackson was born in New York on 3 February 1877. She studied
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And Here’s Broadway’s First Danilo in “The Merry Widow”: Donald Brian (1877-1948)
Donald Brian was the bright-eyed and boyish star of more than 20 years of Broadway operettas and musicals, among them the
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The First English Language Danilo in “The Merry Widow”: US-Comedian Joseph Coyne (1867-1941)
Joseph Coyne was a light comedy actor-who-sings who moved from silly-ass rôles in his native America to stardom as Britain’s
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