GERMANY THEATER REVIEWS

If you can tune out the songs and simply want to see some good dancing, go and see FAME: THE MUSICAL.  If, however, you hope to see characters that you care about singing music that touches your soul, rent or stream the movie....

Barrie Kosky has done it again. WEST SIDE STORY at Berlin's Comic Opera has moments of breathtaking beauty despite uneven casting and hit-and-miss choreography. Jasmina Sakr as Maria is a standout....

Last weekend, Stuttgart's Theater der Altstadt welcomed the play The Woman in Black, a production directed by Gerhard Weber and brought to life by Bernhard Linke, Jorg Pauly and Tatjana Milicevic....

Whenever one of my US friends asks me about a successful German musical, it is for sure "Dance of the Vampires" that comes immediately to my mind. It was Jim Steinman (music) and Michael Kunze (lyrics) created the musical adaption of Roman Polanski's film from 1967. The show premiered in 1997, and h...

Tina The Musical has arrived in Germany. The acclaimed show about Tina Turner's life which premiered in April 2018 at the Aldwych Theatre in London now opens at the Operettenhaus in Hamburg....

One is seldom confronted with a performance like last nights DIE TODE STADT at Berlin's Komische Oper, and I don't mean that in a good way --a miscast, misjudged, major disappointment...

LENYA STORY at Berlin's Renaissance Theater is a savagely misguided, heavy-handed slog through a poorly-written Wikipedia entry.  Neither a play, a musical (jukebox or otherwise), a concert, a musical revue or any other kind of theatrical entertainment, LENYA STORY takes two of the most fascinat...

l am seldom at a loss for words, VIVID GRAND SHOW left me speechless -- again and again and again. Last night's world premiere at Berlin's famed Friedrichstadt Palace, was an absolute stunner. Every moment in the show presented a consistent level of aesthetic beauty so spectacular in its concept and...

Some performers walk on stage. Other performers make an 'entrance,' and then there is Luna Manzanares Nardo, the star and 'raison d'etre' for the touring production of CARMEN LA CUBANA.   Last night at the Admiralspalast, this gorgeous embodiment of Latin sensuality with a voice to match didn't�...

From the masters Shakespeare and Feydeau,  to John Cleese and Monty Python's Flying Circus, to the more recent works of Ken Ludwig and Michael Frayn, farce is a comic gift that keeps on giving.  The Theater Gods have given their highest blessing to the Renaissance Theater's hilariously funny prod...

Off-Musical Frankfurt's stripped-down, bare-bones, cheaply-produced touring production of GREEN DAY'S AMERICAN IDIOT that was foisted upon the half-empty Admiralspalast in Berlin last night had almost NOTHING to do with the musical presented on Broadway.   Last night's performance was like watchin...

What a night! KINKY BOOTS in Hamburg is a Must See. It's drive is different than the shows in the US or UK. There might be no better place of a show like KINKY BOOTS than the world famous Reeperbahn in Hamburg. It's glitter, it's party, it's diversity at it's best. GINO EMNES is giving the performan...

20 years after watching Roman Polanski's world-premiere production, it was with great trepidation that I entered the Musical Dome in Cologne, to watch DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES again. To my surprise, it was a quick-footed, highly-entertaining show that was a vast improvement over the original Viennese p...

Watching CABARET in Berlin, near the original locations of Christopher Isherwood's Book 'I Am A Camera,' gives this Kander and Ebb classic even more dramatic weight than it could possibly have in a New York or London production.  At last night's Premiere of the revival of Director/Choreographe...

Jonas Kaufmann is probably the most sought-after tenor on the planet today.  His DOLCE VITA concert last night at Berlin's glorious outdoor Waldbuehne Amphitheater proved exactly why. Let's state the obvious. Mr. Kaufmann is a tall, very handsome man, who's in very good shape both vocally and ph...

Currently, the world of opera is sorely lacking superstar talent. Last night, at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, three of the world's brightest classical-music talents came together in a very expensive, glittering new production of Verdi's MACBETH. Anna Netrebko, Placido Domingo and conductor Danie...

'Wop baba lu bap a wap bam boom!!' 47 years after its Broadway debut and 40 years after John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John sang and danced their way into the world's collective consciousness, GREASE is still the word! This touring production of GREASE, which has been on the road in German-speak...

A group of young performers (Donna Lee, Darell Hanes, Alexander Simoes, Carrie Getman, Udo Wiegand, and Sara McKee) work with 100% commitment, futilely trying to turn Ken Shakin's THE WANDERING, a musicalized re-imagining of James Joyce's 'Ulysses,' (factually a short Oratorio), into a fully-staged ...

Deutsche Oper Berlin's Verdi Festival 2018 took a very inauspicious turn with last night's woefully underrehearsed performance of LA TRAVIATA. Within the first 8 bars of the Prelude, I knew we were in trouble. Unfortunately, I was not mistaken....

In the right hands, Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA can be one of the funniest pieces in the standard operatic repertoire.  At the many productions of this work that I have seen, there were, at best, a few smiles. When comedy is not done right, it's a tough, often sloppy, slog.  Last night at ...

WAHNSINN! dresses up the extremely commercial, completely interchangeable Wolfgang Petry songs with a clever set design, colorful costumes, interesting choreography and a couple of memorable performances. Enrico De Pieri as Peter (the nominal lead) in the show, almost single-handedly saves this ent...

If you let a Chimpanzee drive a speeding locomotive, you'd get a train wreck similar to DIE FLEDERMAUS at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Former operatic tenor Rolando Villazón is responsible for 'directing' this unmitigated disaster of a very expensive new production. Were I not on assignment to review FLED...

The British are Coming!!!  If Sid Vicious and Bertold Brecht had a baby...and Tiny Tim was its Godfather, the result would be something like the British Cult Trio THE TIGER LILLIES.  Plant your tongue firmly in your cheek and make your way to the Admiralspalast to catch THE TIGER LILLIES in Conce...

Theater Erfurt's General Director, Guy Montavon was responsible for nearly turning THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, (Der fliegende Hollander) Richard Wagner's technicolor, romantic dream of an opera into a black, white and grey nightmare. The story of the Dutchman, Wagner's tragic 'pale Sailor' cursed by Satan...

At the Deutsche Oper Berlin on Saturday night, David Pountney, director of CAV/PAG saddled these beloved works with a concept so profound in its stupidity that it was often mind-blowing and jaw-dropping in its inanity. If there is a special club in Hell exclusively for bad stage directors, Mr. Pount...