Life is a Cabaret, meine Freunde!

Cabaret singer and band leader Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester of Germany played at the Koerner Hall. (Royal Conservatory, Toronto)

Last Tuesday March 9th, we attended the long-awaited concert of Max Raabe & the Palast Orchester at Koerner Hall, Toronto. Raabe transported us back to the 1920s-30s with period music and droll sophistication. The performance was sheer delight from beginning to end. A spectacular and truculent feast.
My advice: If they play in a town near you, don't hesitate, buy your tickets right now!

Yes, we were very close...We were third row, actually. It felt as if they were playing just for us! And with Koerner Hall's perfect acoustics, it simply was wunderbar!

After 3 encores, the band finally left the stage. Oh, but I would not have minded a 4th one...

After the concert, in the lobby of the Royal Conservatory. The girls (Cristy, myself, Mel, Tess and Jen) gathered around the piano for a silent performance...

The boys (Shayne, Daniel, and Miguel) too had their little impromptu trio!

FYI. From an interview with the National Post:

Q: Can you tell me a little about the Orchester and its music?

A: We’re playing the music of the 20s and 30s. We are 13 people on-stage. We have four saxophones, two trumpets, a trombone, a rhythm section and a wonderful violin player - she’s the only woman on-stage, so (she’s) the princess in the orchestra. We’re playing the music of the Weimar Republic, that wild and furious and interesting time between 1920 and 1933. That was the music of the varieties, and big revues, from early talking pictures. We play that music from the original arrangements. (Read more)

In the Toronto Life:

"It is possible to take a jaunt back to old Berlin, thanks to this German singer and bandleader. Raabe and his tuxedoed players excel at period renditions of the acerbic, rollicking music of such Weimar Republic–era composers as Kurt Weill—though, judging by Raabe and his Orchester’s nutty versions of “Mambo No. 5” and “Oops… I Did It Again,” historical authenticity isn’t their only objective."—Jason Anderson