The world is beautiful

Lively rhythms, jazz music, stories of love set against mountain storms, South Sea princesses, soccer, or fake hussars in hotels, on film sets, and in other modern settings: that was the operetta of the 1920s and early 1930s. Almost as dazzling as their subject matter were their composers, singers, and librettists—often Austrian, even more often Jewish, and certainly anything but shy about speaking their minds—among them Paul Abraham, Alfred Grünwald, and Fritz Löhner-Beda. With the Nazis’ rise to power, their world came crashing down. In a unique operetta evening, director Anna Bernreitner brings the music and lyrics of this lively, politically oppressed era back to life.