1930s Jazz Operetta and internationalization then and now: risks, ethics, aesthetics

This chapter considers internationalization as an internal feature of Weimar-era German-language jazz operettas, in terms of theme, storyline, music, and dance, in works subsequently violently suppressed by the Nazi regime. Following a discussion of how jazz operetta’s structure deals with difference, the chapter considers two case studies of early-1930s jazz operettas – Paul Ábrahám’s Viktoria und ihr Husar (1930) and Die Blume von Hawaii (1931) – in terms of their engagement with internationalization. It then provides a brief account of the role of internationalization in operetta in the Nazi and post-war eras, before examining the challenges that contemporary revivals face in staging works whose original stagings contained elements, such as blackface, that are no longer acceptable.