The White Horse Inn

For other White Horse Inns see the White Horse disambiguation page.

Im weißen Rößl (English title: White Horse Inn or The White Horse Inn) is a musical comedy set in the picturesque Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria. It is about the head waiter of the White Horse Inn in St. Wolfgang who is desperately in love with the owner of the inn, a resolute young woman who seemingly only has eyes for one of her regular guests. Sometimes classified as an operetta, the show enjoyed huge successes both on Broadway and in the West End (651 performances at the Coliseum starting April 8, 1931) and was filmed several times. In a way similar to The Sound of Music and the three Sissi movies, the play and its film versions have contributed to the saccharine image of Austria as an alpine idyll—the kind of idyll tourists have been seeking for almost a century now. Today, Im weißen Rößl is mainly remembered for its songs, many of which have become popular classics.

Genesis of the play

Just as the play was about to be forgotten—a silent movie starring Liane Haid had been made in Germany in 1926—it was revived, again in Berlin, and this time as a musical comedy. During a visit to the Salzkammergut, the actor Emil Jannings told Berlin theatre manager Erik Charell about the comedy. Charell was interested and commissioned a group of prominent authors and composers to come up with a musical show based on Blumenthal and Kadelburg's libretto. They were Ralph Benatzky and Robert Stolz (music), Robert Gilbert (lyrics), Hans Müller and Charell himself. The show premiered in Berlin on November 8, 1930. Immediately afterwards it became a success around the world, with long runs in cities like London, Paris, Vienna, Munich and New York.

During the Third Reich the comedy was marginalized and not performed (Goebbels called it "eine Revue, die uns heute zum Hals heraushängt"—"the kind of entertainment we find boring today"), whereas people in the 1950s, keen on harmony and shallow pleasures, eagerly greeted revivals of the show. German language films based on the musical comedy were made in 1935, 1952 and 1960 respectively.

Musical numbers

• "Im weißen Rössl am Wolfgangsee"
• "Was kann der Sigismund dafür, dass er so schön ist"
• "Im Salzkammergut, da kann man gut lustig sein"
• "Es muss was Wunderbares sein"
• "Mein Liebeslied muss ein Walzer sein"
• "Zuschaun kann i net"
• "Die ganze Welt ist himmelblau"

Film adaptations

A post-war Argentinian movie in Spanish, La Hostería del caballito blanco, was directed by Benito Perojo and released in 1948.

In addition, the musical triggered a number of spin-offs such as the 1961 Austrian comedy film Im schwarzen Rößl (The Black Horse Inn), directed by Franz Antel, about a young woman (surprisingly, it was Karin Dor again, who had just played Giesecke's daughter in the 1960 version) who inherits a dilapidated hotel on the shores of the Wolfgangsee. As a matter of fact, a number of hotels in St. Wolfgang do use similar names (Black Horse, White Stag, etc.).

A note on the spelling

According to the German spelling reform of the 1990s, which curbed the use of the letter ß, Rößl, which has a diminutive suffix added to the noun Roß ("horse", "steed"), now has to be spelt Rössl (just as it is Ross now instead of Roß). Understandably, both Rößl and Rössl can be seen simultaneously nowadays, depending on when a particular text was written.

External link

• The Weißes Rössl web site