Happy Birthday, Barrie Kosky And Kurt Gänzl!
Astrologically speaking, we’re still living under an Aquarian moon. And this week, we are celebrating the birthdays of two of
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L’OEIL CREVÉ: 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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Puccini’s Operetta “La Rondine” At The Deutsche Oper Berlin
When I was very young, I had a book called something like The Operas of Puccini. I can’t remember –
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Offenbach’s sexy medieval spoof “Geneviève de Brabant”
Of the great opéras-bouffes of Offenbach’s early years, the one which has suffered the most inexplicable eclipse in the 20th
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Ethan Mordden’s New American Operetta History
Anyone who has walked into a bookshop in the USA recently will have noticed that Ethan Mordden’s attractively packaged Anything
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Grimm!, or Who’s Afraid of the Big, Dancing Wolf?
Last year, while in Berlin, I went to see the musical produced by the UDK musical-theatre school and its graduating
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Have You Heard Of Henri Christine’s “Phi-Phi” (1918)?
Do you know Phi-Phi? Unless you are French or Hungarian and over 90 years of age, you won’t ever have
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Popular Musical Theatre In London And Berlin: 1890 To 1939
Here is something really yummy: a collection of essays dealing with various aspects of popular musical theater at the beginning
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SHOW BOAT: Musical Play in 2 Acts
One of the most successful romantic musical plays of the 1920s, Show Boat (Ziegfeld Theater, New York, 27 December 1927)
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Seeing “Spring Awakening” In New Zealand – For The First Time
Frank Wedekind’s Frühlingserwachen (1891) is a ‘famous’ play. ‘Famous’ in a Lady Chatterley’s Lover way. There’s nothing like some healthy
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Josefine GALLMEYER (b Leipzig, 27 February 1838; d Vienna, 2 February 1884)
‘Die fesche Pepi’ – ‘Jolly Josie’ – was one of the most popular and famous stars of the Viennese musical
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Marie GEISTINGER (b Graz, 26 July 1836; d Klagenfurt, 30 September 1903)
Born in Graz to theatrical parents, Geistinger first went on the stage as a child and had an early exposure
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Zulma Bouffar: The “Other” Prima Donna of the Offenbach-Age
Zulma Bouffar (b Nérac, 24 May 1841) made her first appearance on the stage at the age of six, at
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The Original Operetta-Diva: Hortense Schneider
She was the six-year shooting star of Offenbach’s Théâtre des Variétés series whose dazzling career declined at the same time
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Lydia Thompson, the “Father of All Drag Kings”?
Lydia Thompson [Eliza Hodges Thompson] is one of the theatre’s ‘legends’, and as in the case of other such legendary
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You Dont Have to Be a Skinny to Be a Superstar: Marie Desclauzas
Marie Desclauzas was a buxom and eventually hefty star of the opérette stage who became the most admired musical character
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Mr. Burlesque Himself: William B. Gill
Australia’s most successful ever international manufacturer of musical plays was born Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada 10 May 1842. The grandson of
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Operetta Delights in Wooster
Lovers of operetta and musicals had the rare opportunity for a week-long wallow in their favorite sport during the Ohio
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A Trip to Ohio. Or: Six Operettas (And More) in Four Days
For the last five days, I’ve been in Ohio. Yes, Ohio, USA. Yes, I know I said, years ago, that
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This Summer in Ohio: Seven Full-Scale Productions
Next week, the Ohio Light Opera is starting its 36th season – with 7 (in writing: seven!) productions on offer
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Exporting Operette: The World Is Not Enough
What became eventually known as “operetta” or “opérette” didn’t start its life under that name. The earliest works of the
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Why, Oh Why, Oh Why, Oh? First International Operetta Conference in Ohio
The founding Artistic Director of the Ohio Light Opera, James Stuart, has always taken the mission of his company very
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“Horrible Prettiness or Satanic Subversiveness”?
“Gender Studies” are something on everyone’s lips these days. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, the operetta world has hardly taken note of
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Emily Soldene: In Search of a Singer
I don’t suppose the name means very much nowadays to anyone but a handful of music and theatre historians. Emily
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Liberace on the Blue Danube
I don’t think I have been to a solo piano concert since I was at school. Julius Katchen. Lili Kraus.
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NAUGHTY MARIETTA Musical comedy in 2 acts
Naughty Marietta was written as a commission from impresario Oscar Hammerstein, a transfuge from the world of opera, for a
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THE STUDENT PRINCE Musical play in 2 acts
The Student Prince was not the first musical to be based on Meyer-Förster’s 1901 Studentenstück Alt Heidelberg (Berliner Theater 22
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HERVÉ: Florimond Ronger (b Houdain, 30 June 1825; d Paris, 3 November 1892)
Florimond Ronger, known to the musical and theatrical world simply as Hervé, was one of the great characters in,
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The 19th century’s most popular musical-theatre composer: Jacques Offenbach
The son of a German bookbinder, music-teacher and cantor called Eberst, but known as Offenbach, the young Jacob was given
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Altenburg bei Paris? Or: “Toi c’est moi”
Yesterday I went to Altenburg. I know, even my German friends say ‘where?’. Well, it’s a lovely town in Thüringen,
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“Welt der Operette: Glamour, Stars und Showbusiness”
This big and lavishly illustrated coffee table book appears as a companion to an exhibition at the Österreichischer Theatermuseum in
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ORPHÉE AUX ENFERS Opéra-bouffon in 2 acts
Orphée aux enfers was Offenbach’s first venture into mounting a full-scale opéra-bouffe at his blossoming little Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, where
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Rudolf Friml (b Prague, 8 December 1879; d Hollywood, Calif, 12 November 1972)
The Prague-born Friml studied music in his native city from a young age, and made his early career principally as
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DER BETTELSTUDENT Komische Operette in 4 acts
Millöcker’s most successful Operette and, indeed, one of the very few 19th-century Viennese pieces which do not have the fashionable
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BOCCACCIO Operette in 3 acts
Franz von Suppé followed up his first great success with a full-length Operette, Fatinitza, with a second, three years later.
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GOING UP Musical comedy in 3 acts
James Montgomery’s 1910 play The Aviator was put to musical use seven years on by its author and the now
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