DER ORLOW

Operetta in eight pictures by Ernst Marischka and Bruno Granichstaedten

There are so many things that are forbidden, and yet you do them ...

Granichstaedten's Orlow is a jewel to discover in two respects: The play from 1925, at the time a real rival even for The Merry Widow , and the title hero, who is a giant diamond. The Russian Grand Duke Alexander rescues the legendary gemstone while fleeing the 1917 revolution into exile in North America. He works there as a mechanic in a car factory under the name Alex Doroschinsky.
When he falls in love with his countrywoman, the famous dancer Nadja Nadjakowska, he wants to turn the Orlov into money and asks his factory director for help. However, he takes advantage of the situation - he is also in love with Nadja and gives her the diamond without further ado. Before there can be a happy ending after all, a whole series of misunderstandings and offended vanities have to be cleared up.

With the charming contrast between the nostalgically mellifluous duets "à la russe" of Alex and Nadja and the jazz-inspired musical tone of their American exile home, Granichstaedten achieved worldwide success - he was the first, even before Abraham and Kálmán, to combine Viennese operetta with foxtrot, shimmy and blues - and the balalajka with the saxophone. Like his Alex, the composer had to flee after the Anschluss of Austria; he died in exile in New York in 1944. His music, however, sparkles with life and is now finally finding its way back onto the stage.