About the work
Alles Schwindel is a musical burlesque by the composer Mischa Spoliansky to a book and lyrics by Marcellus Schiffer, combining elements of revue, operetta, cabaret and jazz. Gustaf Gründgens directed the premiere on 11 April 1931 at a theatre on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm. Marlene Dietrich travelled from Hollywood specially to attend the opening.
Plot
Two people meet through a marriage advertisement, each pretending to be more than they are: Erna Schmidt poses as the wealthy heiress Evelyne Hill, Artur Henschke as the businessman Tonio Hendricks. After a car accident on their first date, both urgently need 30,000 marks, and in their hunt for the money they become entangled in a web of lies, imposture and hypocrisy. In the Berlin of the late Weimar years they keep running into other swindlers who trade in false identities and feigned feelings.
Cultural significance
The work belongs to Berlin's revue culture around 1930, whose artists, many of them Jewish, were persecuted or forced to emigrate after 1933; Spoliansky himself left for London, and the burlesque disappeared from the stage for decades. Because the orchestral score was considered lost, the first revivals from 2017 onwards relied on reconstructions based on the piano reduction; the original score has since resurfaced in an estate.