Here's something no operetta fan in Berlin (or visiting Berlin in September) should miss: the Kleine Theater am Südwestkorso will present a show called Warum soll eine Frau kein Verhältnis haben? about the life and art of legendary operetta diva Fritzi Massary. It's a piece written by James Edward Lyons (who already presented the impressive musical version of King Kong at the Kleine Theater last year) and will feature the wonderful Agnes Hilpert as Massary Hilpert impressed me hugely a while ago in the musical Baby Talk (at the Neuköllner Oper), and I trust she will do an outstanding job singing those naughty Massary numbers.

There was a time - just after World War II - that Jessel's Schwarzwaldmädel was the most successful operetta of them all. The year was 1950, and the first post-war German movie in color came out, set in the breathtakingly beautiful black forrest, with Sonja Ziemann as the maid in traditional costume and with rearranged music by Jessel. It was a smash hit and started a whole series of "Heimatfilm Operetten" - you might even say it started the genre "Heimatfilm", full stop.

On Augsut 3, 2010 a memorial plaque for the legendary opera- and operetta tenor Peter Anders (1908-1954) was unveiled in Berlin/Moabit, Thomasius Street 25. It is the house where the tenor lived as a young man with his parents and from where his great career started in the 1930s and 40s.

The Schwule Museum, Berlin's one and only gay museum, will present the first exhibition on "the German Mr. Ziegfeld": stage director and theatrical legend, Erik Charell (1894-1974), the creator of the 1920s glamorous revues at the Grosse Schauspielhaus, revues that starred Marlene Dietrich, the Comedian Harmonist, Joseph Schmidt, Siegfried Arno, Max Hansen, Claire Waldoff and many others.