Operetta by Paul Abraham
Premiere on November 30, 2024
In German language with German surtitles
Age recommendation from 12 years
The most important thing you long for:
The happy, happy, happy, happy ending!
Hollywood meets the Côte d'Azur. Marylou, daughter of film producer Sam Macintosh, is planning her own movie to use the proceeds to save Universal Star Picture Ltd. from ruin and herself from a marriage arranged by her father. In the gossip column of the New York Times, Marylou comes across a suitable real-life model: the Spanish Infanta Isabella, who lives in exile with her dethroned family in a luxury hotel on the Côte d'Azur. In order to finance her court, a movie offer would be just what Isabella needs, if only it weren't for the inappropriate terrain. And then room waiter Albert falls in love with the beautiful Spaniard!
Paul Abraham's fairy tale at the Grand Hôtel, first performed in 1934, is teeming with typical operetta clichés: class differences here, last-minute clarification of major misunderstandings there, garnished with dazzling music that not only conjures up the operetta bliss of the "Silver Age", but also masterfully conjures up fashionable dances such as the foxtrot and tango or even new jazz sounds on stage. Paul Abraham, born in Hungary in 1892, became one of the most successful composers of his time in the early 1930s with titles such as Viktoria und ihr Husar, die Blume von Hawaii and Ball im Savoy. The Nazi terror put an abrupt end to this high-flying career: Abraham fled to New York via Paris, where he was unable to gain a foothold artistically and soon fell into a state of mental derangement from which he would not awaken until his death in 1960.