Hotel Savoy

A hybrid operetta with the Musicbanda Franui (2024)

Concept by Gwendolyne Melchinger, Corinna von Rad and Andreas Schett based on the novel of the same name by Joseph Roth (1924)

With music by Paul Abraham, Werner Richard Heymann, Emmerich Kálmán, Franz Lehár, Oscar Straus and others, edited by Markus Kraler and Andreas Schett

Sung in German with German surtitles

PREMIERE 
21 July 2024 - 7.30 p.m.

DURATION
approx. 2 hours (no intermission)

A Schauspiel Stuttgart and Staatsoper Stuttgart production

In Joseph Roth’s early novel, a hotel serves as a metaphor for a world unhinged by World War One. The experiences of exile and desolation are deeply inscribed in the text. Stranded characters, soldiers, bankrupts, more or less malevolent profiteers, both true and pretentious artists, and prostitutes have taken up their residence there. As if for the Messiah, they are all waiting for the arrival of the hotel owner, a billionaire named Bloomfield from America. Most prominently the war survivor Gabriel Dan. But Bloomfields plans for his visit are quite different from saving the Savoy Hotel and its guests ...

This novel serves as the thematic basis of this musical theatre. Nearly all composers of the Silver Operetta Era share a common fate: they were driven into exile by the National Socialists. With them the art of light music also disappeared from the German-speaking world - a loss that the European classical music scene has not yet overcome. The fate of Paul Abraham seems emblematic of the suffering of many successful musicians of the Weimar Republic: driven mad, he conducts traffic in Times Square. With one ear picking up the sounds of history, the other open to the future - so to speak - knowing these life stories, operetta music can be heard in an interesting an original way. The Musicbanda Franui musically rearranges and recomposes the greatest hits from the period between 1900 and 1935, for this new interpretation. 

With Gábor Biedermann, Boris Burgstaller, Josefin Feiler, Moritz Kallenberg, Josephine Köhler, Klaus Rodewald, Paula Skorupa, Felix Strobel

Musical Director Andreas Schett
Stage Director Corinna von Rad
Stage Design Ralf Käselau
Costume Design Sabine Blickenstorfer
Dramaturge Gwendolyne Melchinger

MUSICBANDA FRANUI