Ball im Savoy at The National Theatre

After 80 years, one of the Weimar era’s most spectacular jazz operettas returns to the place of its origin: inaugurally performed in Berlin in 1932 (with the orchestra of the Metropol Theatre), this masterpiece from the pen of the Jewish Hungarian composer Paul Abraham reflects the hedonistic atmosphere of his era, and is a dazzling revue on love, sex, and Paso Doble.

The dancing takes place at a ball at the Hotel Savoy, where the drink is flowing freely and at which a motley group of people from around the world have gathered. People are having not just a whale of a time, but even a “kangaroo” – the name of a groovy dance is paid homage to at the beginning of the operetta. And love is just as energetically celebrated, so the protagonists swing to and fro between promiscuity and marital faithfulness. Here the rule is as follows: equal rights for all, regardless of sex.

In this crazy, fast-paced comedy, ambiguous humour à la Feydeau meets biting observations in the vein of The Bat – set to jazzy foxtrot sounds! Beneath the surface of middle-class morality, things are coming to the boil. The pressure can only be relieved through dancing. The dance at the Savoy will soon prove itself to be a dance atop the volcano, and come to an abrupt end with the dawn of a new political era. Yet with his cosmopolitan characters and luminous show numbers like »Wenn wir Türken küssen« (»When we Turks kiss«) and »Es ist so schön, am Abend bummeln zu gehen« (»It’s so lovely to go strolling at night«), Abraham created a masterpiece of operetta which must be re-discovered at all costs.