Dancing on a Volcano: A Berlin Kabarett

Author(s):

Angelina Réaux, actress and classical singer, created A Berlin Kabarett with music by composers who were either lost in the Holocaust, forced into exile, or silenced by the Nazis. Réaux, together with Dr. Alan Lareau, an expert on Berlin cabaret and professor of German at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, undertook painstaking research all over Europe to uncover these songs, which they eventually discovered in the form of old sheet music and manuscripts hidden in publisher archives, Berlin libraries, and family attics. Originally performed in Berlin clubs before the outbreak of World War II, kabarett was a way to express anti-Third Reich sentiment and became an enormously popular form of entertainment. The majority of German cabaret music was destroyed by the Nazis, but the surviving songs are brought to life by Réaux in her cabaret performance.
Format: Cabaret
Cast Size: 1F

Snapshot

Original or Prominent Production: Created for the New York Philharmonic’s Weimar Berlin Festival in 1994–95. Performed at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago, April 1998.
Original Source Material: Music by composers such as Hanns Eisler, Alexander Zemlinsky, and Kurt Weill.
Nationality of Author:
Original Language: Songs performed in English and German.

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