LOVE COMES STEALING IN

GEORGE COLERICK remembers
Wolfgang Ostberg (1939-2011)

I had the fortune during the 1990s to befriend a distinguished Berlin Metropol Theatre entertainer, Wolgang Ostberg. Of small stature, very agile and with a phonetic ear, his versatility took him often beyond the line of duty, such as swinging from chandeliers or playing drunken jailors climbing on a wardrobe in Fledermaus or 'one-legged' and finding a comic Saxon accent for Carl Millöcker's Beggar Student.

I first saw him in Paul Lincke's Frau Luna, Berlin's inimitable moon farce, as an officious but amorous Berlin policeman in a balcony scene with a compliant bargirl. He doubled as a visiting Lunar official who once seduced a maid in Berlin's Zoo Garden:

Softly, silently, like a thief in darkest night,
With the old seductive tunes, Love comes stealing in...

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Copyright © 1 October 2014 George Colerick,
London UK

WOLFGANG OSTBERG

JACQUES OFFENBACH

BERLIN

GERMANY

OPERETTA

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