Happy Travel
| Work data | |
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| Title: | Happy Travel |
| Shape: | operetta |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Eduard Künneke |
| Libretto : | Max Bertuch and Kurt Schwabach |
| Premiere: | November 23, 1932 |
| Place of premiere: | Berlin |
| Place and time of the action: | Argentina and Berlin around 1930 |
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Happy Journey is an operetta in three acts (seven pictures) by Eduard Künneke . Max Bertuch wrote the libretto . Kurt Schwabach contributed the lyrics. It premiered on November 23, 1932 in the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin.
orchestra
Two flutes, an oboe, two clarinets or saxophones, a bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, a trombone, a harp, percussion and strings.
action
The first act takes place in a remote plantation in Argentina, acts two and three in Berlin at the end of the 1920s.
After the First World War , in which they had done their service as officers, was over, Robert von Hartenau and his friend Stefan Schwarzenberger held nothing in Germany. They looked for happiness in a foreign country. Far away from home, in the Argentine jungle, they have built a farm that they are now successfully managing. The only connection to Germany is a pen friendship that each of them maintains with a girl from Berlin. Stefan corresponds with Monika Brink. Judging from what she writes to him, she must be quite rich, a lady of the world. Robert corresponds with Lona Vonderhoff, who does not seem to have any particularly distinctive characteristics.
When Stefan and Robert once again received a visit from their old friend Captain Brangersen, who practically acts as a postman, they were overwhelmed by homesickness. They long to finally get to know their pen friends personally. But because they don't have enough change to pay for the crossing, Brangersen hires the two as stewards.
Monika exaggerated enormously in her letters. Because of rich lady! In reality, she earns her sandwich in a travel agency. But that's not all: She also wrote the letters to Robert and pretended to be her own friend Lona, without having let her in on her hoax; because Lona is engaged to the much older councilor Huebner.
As luck would have it, Stefan and Robert find their way to the travel agency where Monika and Lona work. For every couple, it's love at first sight. They spend the evening together in a bar on the Wannsee. And again fate intervenes: Councilor Huebner and his friend Homann, the head of the travel agency, ended up in the same restaurant, of all places. Now it won't be long before Monika's swindles will come to light. After a number of entanglements and mix-ups, in the end everything works out fine. Stefan gets his Monika and Robert gets the dashing Lona. At the end of the operetta, both couples leave for Argentina. Happy Travel!
music
The music is lively and brilliantly orchestrated. It is dominated by dance rhythms that were predominant in the 20s: Tango, Rumba, and Foxtrot. With the introduction of the blues into the work, there are also some jazzy echoes. The following are catchy tunes:
- Over at home, there is a rose garden in bloom
- Life is a carousel
- It has to be night
- Love knows no boundaries
- Honey, the first sentence
- Happy Travel
Film adaptations
The operetta was made into a film by Victor Klein as early as 1933. Magda Schneider , Carla Carlsen and Max Hansen played under the direction of Alfred Abel . The remake by Capitol 1954 worked with Thomas Engel (director), Paul Hubschmid , Inge Egger , Paul Klinger , Peer Schmidt and Ina Peters .