Island of Dreams (Operetta)
Insel der Träume is an operetta by Joachim von Ostau and Hans-Martin Majewski (1938); Peermusic, Hamburg. The first performance took place on May 12, 1938 in Gronau (Westphalia) . After a revision phase, the island of dreams opened the 1938/39 Oldenburg theater season. This operetta was also played in Zwickau and Berlin , but was forgotten at the beginning of the Second World War.
Emergence
The peculiarities of the operetta can be explained by its origin in the Gronauer “Gesellschaft Recreation”, a factory owners club, and the implementation by the Enschedesch Opera en Operette Gezelschap .
From 1936, Ostau designed an operetta for the local stars who worked with him in the operetta company and in the club. He therefore chose a comparatively small cast and placed great emphasis on dance interludes - because his main actors were trained as dancers, but not as singers. Ostau designed a reporter's buffet roll for himself. The remaining gaps were closed with professionals from Leipzig and Göttingen. UFA put Ostau in contact with Hans-Martin Majewski, who was at the beginning of his career as a répétiteur and film composer.
The idea for the exotic, remote location of the operetta was provided by a newspaper note about the "sudden appearance of a magically beautiful island in the South Pacific [...], which, caused by sea eruptions, remained undiscovered for a long time, especially since it was not shown on the map “(Majewski).
The content
In terms of content, the “Island of Dreams” appears as a Zeitgeist collage from the 1930s. The scenes already refer to the inner tension between modern technology and romantic dreaming of paradise: Acts first and third take place at an airport, the middle one on a distant South Sea island - near Hawaii .
The operetta begins dynamically and funny with a "choir of radio operators". In the first scene, Mabel, the head of an airline, is greeted with pathos when she returns from a record flight. Her performance song “Sun, I'll come towards you” is reminiscent of Hans Albers ' successful hit Flieger, greet me the sun from the film FP1 does not answer (1932). The aviator Mabel was probably modeled on the aviators Elly Beinhorn and Hanna Reitsch , who were popular in the 1930s, and possibly also the figure of Mabel Atkinson from the film Capriolen (1937).
Shortly afterwards Mabel has to reprimand her chief pilot Jack, who is late because he was completely enchanted by a newly discovered island on the flight from "Frisco to Honolulu".
At the end of the first act, Jack and Mabel fly off together to explore the "dreamland". After his arrival on the South Sea island (in the second act), Jack is happy that he can now forget the "sobriety of our so-called civilization" ... As stowaways, however, are Bill, a reporter, George, the flight director, and Lilian, his secretary, been on board. On the island you come across Doris, an attractive, talented South Sea islander and her playmates.
Their entanglements and love affairs (after all, "a little love ... is so nice!") Finally end again at the airport: Jack and Mabel, Bill and Lilian have finally found each other as couples at the end of the third act, Doris goes to see her friends Revue and George becomes their manager. The South Sea island has now been swallowed up again by the sea in a seaquake. Inevitably, all that remains is the modern present, the “Dreamland” emergency exit is locked. As a consequence, Mabel now realizes that her true destiny is not in her job, but at the side of her future husband (“I'm only a woman.”) Despite all the convention and narrowness, a song of praise for freedom is intoned in the finale in front of the airport backdrop : "Freedom! I want to take you, I can't let you - because you are mine! "
The music
The composer Hans-Martin Majewski was a universal talent who picked up many musical directions of his time and integrated them into his own style. He knew how to stay away from political statements in his musical work during the Nazi era and at the beginning of his career limited himself to writing catchy melodies, most of which were catchy tunes.
Majewski wrote for a small orchestra, as the first version of the operetta was intended for a German-Dutch amateur performance. Many of the quick-witted individual numbers can stand up for themselves and could have been successful "hit songs" - Majewski himself describes them as "snappy wise men and perky Buffo numbers". Von Ostau put great emphasis on dance interludes and so Majewski composed the choir scenes with dance steps of the so-called "girls". In his memoir, the composer sees an unmistakable characteristic of the island of dreams in the fact that "poetry has been replaced by cheeky dance interludes, brisk melodies and cheerful songs, a ballroom with tails and large cloakroom with a sporty environment". In addition, there was a strong dash of exoticism that moved the plot, at least temporarily, from the real world to a fuzzy “somewhere”. Ultimately, Majewski judges the operetta as a “little school play”, which musically could not land a stroke of genius. Ironic breaks do occur, however, and are often interspersed with a wink - at the beginning of his career Majewski was still relatively cautious with the innovative ideas and developments that characterize his later films.
Although Insel der Träume is a work in its own right, the composer's style has not yet developed so far that it could be called unmistakable. Since Majewski was only 27 years old and did not yet have a name in the music business, he had to submit to Joachim von Ostau and his libretto. “Insubordinate running against attitudes towards life”, as Volker Klotz wishes for in his operetta definition, was life-threatening during the Nazi era; In addition, von Ostau was not a blank slate in Nazi politics.
On a musical level, Majewski has incorporated small ironic satirical barbs in a hidden form. Jazz harmonies, syncopation, modern dances and the expansion of the orchestral sound are just a few examples with which he allowed himself musical freedom. Nevertheless, the work is actually a school piece, well-crafted, with melodies that invite you to whistle and a music-dramatic form that is nowhere offensive. One of the reasons for his later success in the film business is that Majewski was a master at adapting and subordinating his music to the content. In more mature years and after the Second World War (which also saw him drafted), he developed his own modern style with an experimental character. But the small operetta Insel der Träume remains, according to its content, also musically in “moderate courtesy” (Klotz).
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Alfred Hagemann / Elmar Hoff (eds.): "Island of Dreams". Music in Gronau and Enschede (1895–2005) , Essen 2006, p. 295f.
- ↑ Hans-Martin Majewski: My first operetta experience (quote from an unpublished manuscript). In: Hagemann / Hoff, p. 296.
- ↑ Isle of Dreams . Operetta in three acts by Joachim von Ostau, music by Hans-Martin Majewski, text and direction book, Berlin 1938, p. 9.
- ↑ Text and director's book, p. 13.
- ↑ Text and director's book, p. 28.
- ↑ Text and director's book, p. 73.
- ↑ Hagemann / Hoff, p. 297.
- ↑ Hagemann / Hoff, p. 296.
- ↑ cf. Patricia Gläfcke: "Island of Dreams" - The Music. In: Hagemann / Hoff, pp. 306-312.
literature
- Alfred Hagemann, Elmar Hoff (ed.): "Island of Dreams". Music in Gronau and Enschede (1895-2005) . Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2006, pp. 191, 295-312. ISBN 978-3898616201
- Alfred Hagemann: The operetta "Island of Dreams" and its premiere in the Gronauer Apollo Theater. In: Alfred Hagemann, Elmar Hoff (eds.): Gronau - Enschede - Berlin: A musical journey through the world of entertainment from the Weimar Republic to the post-war period , Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2011, pp. 64–69. ISBN 978-3-8375-0537-5
- Klaus Völge: On the nature, function and significance of operettas and Singspiel in the Third Reich (1933-1945). A study of musical entertainment theater in the Nazi era using the example of the operetta schedules of the Oldenburg State and State Theater . Master's thesis, University of Oldenburg 1997, pp. 92–96, 199.