In San Francisco, money is tight and old sailors like Jonas are left to sleep rough in the crime-ridden port city. Unexpectedly, the boatman Anatol Brown inherits the Hotel Nevada, the last building yet to fall into the hands of the greedy nightclub magnate, Xonga Miller. The problem is that Anatol’s uncle happens to have accumulated a mountain of debt with her. If Anatol can’t raise the $10,000, his dream of turning the Nevada into a home for retired sailors will come to nothing. With a huge fundraiser involving plenty of booze, the sailors of Frisco ultimately manage to scrape together the money, just in time.

After the great success of Gerd Natschinski’s East German operetta Gisela, Hit of the Trade Fair , the Komische Oper is turning its attention to another gem from East Germany’s ‘light-hearted music theatre’: Guido Masanetz’s 1962 musical jaunt into the capitalist abroad, In Frisco, All Hell’s Broken Out . Its rough seaman’s humor and dance-happy East German take on American life can now be experienced in a semi-concert version.