Operas and operettas maintain a comparatively relaxed relationship to war. There’s the handsome young soldier and the vain officer, the big victory celebration and the amusing military parody. The reason is as simple as it is complicated in terms of the history of ideas: when the pieces were created, weapons of mass destruction and the mass deaths of the world wars were still unknown. And the war was seen more as a political matter, at best as a moral matter. “The Merry War” is the name of an operetta by Johann Strauss, after which the Gärtnerplatztheater named a recital in the foyer.
“The Merry War” – a recital at the Gärtnerplatztheater – Munich
