Eine.frau.in.berlin

BMG will release as soundtrack album for the German television series Babylon Berlin. The album features the show’s original music composed by Johnny Klimek & Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas, Run Lola Run, The International, Sense8, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer). Also included are tracks by The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, Moka Efti Orchestra, Tim Fischer & more. The soundtrack will be released digitally and physically on November 24, 2017 and is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Babylon Berlin is co-created and -directed by Tykwer and stars Volker Bruch, Liv Lisa Fries, Matthias Brandt, Hannah Herzsprung, Karl Markovics, Lars Eidinger and Sebastian Urzen. The drama is based on Volker Kutscher’s book Der nasse Fisch and follows a police inspector caught up in a web of drugs, sex, political intrigue and murder in go-go Berlin as Germany teeters on the edge of Nazism. The period drama premiered last week on Sky Germany and will debut in the U.S. on Netflix in 2018.

Barbara Schöneberger (born 5 March 1974) is a German actress, singer, and TV host. Schöneberger is the only child of clarinet player Hans Schöneberger and his wife Annemarie. She studied sociology, art history, and communication studies in Augsburg. She lives in Berlin with her second husband Maximilian von Schierstädt and has a son and a daughter.

Soprano Diana Damrau, dazzling in the operas of Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi and Richard Strauss, also has operetta in her blood. With this album she tours three capital cities of operetta – Vienna, Berlin and Paris – and covers nearly seven decades of musical history.

Zarah Leander was the most popular singing movie star during the Nazi period. Born Zarah Hedberg in Sweden, she came up through the ranks of small-town Swedish vaudeville and operetta to establish herself on the Viennese stage by 1935, appearing in Ralph Benatsky's Axel an der Himmelstür. UFA studios in Berlin had lost Marlene Dietrich to Hollywood in 1930, and had since then been seeking a suitable replacement. Although not a strong actress, Zarah Leander's looks combined the sultry sensuality of Dietrich with the Nordic iciness of Greta Garbo. Her singing voice was suitable for Viennese operetta, and from the standpoint of sheer musical talent, she could certainly outpace what Dietrich had been able to offer in this respect. These aspects of Leander's talent proved enough to convince UFA to sign her as a contract player in 1936.

Maurice Maeterlinck completed his play The Blue Bird ("L’Oiseau bleu") in 1908. Several of his previous works had proved popular as operatic subjects (Pelléas et Mélisande and Ariane et Barbe-Bleue) so it's no wonder that composers jumped at the opportunity to set his latest creation to music.French composer Albert Wolff based an opera on the story, which premiered at the New York Met but subsequently fell into oblivion. Prior to that, in 1912, Max Reinhardt adapted it as a Christmas play and staged a production in Berlin, inviting no less a person than Engelbert Humperdinck to write the incidental music for it. The music was never published, but Steffen Tast eventually located the score and salvaged it for us all to enjoy. A sweet story and newly discovered music by Humperdinck that's sweeter still? Truly a recipe for a fairy-tale ending!