Portraying Passion
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PORTRAYING PASSION WORKS BY WEILL / PAUS / IVES TORA AUGESTAD MEZZO-SOPRANO OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA JOSHUA WEILERSTEIN CONDUCTOR CHRISTIAN EGGEN CONDUCTOR 2 FROM Choreographer George Balanchine, who had formed The premiere of The Seven Deadly Sins occurred on as the shimmy, the march, foxtrot, waltz, and tarantella, the Les Ballets 1933 troupe in Paris together with ar- 7 June 1933 at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in and sets the jazz-referenced banjo against the opening tistic director Boris Kochno, sought out ballet works Paris. The stage sets were created by Neher, with Bal- clarinets, into a cantata-like musical score. Throughout, DISSONANT HISTORIES to perform for a showcase evening of new works. Ed- anchine responsible for all choreography, and Abra- we experience unanticipated harmonic shifts and oscil- ward James would be the generous backer, on condi- vanel conducting. The two Annas were performed by lating major-minor changes, simultaneously promoting TO TRANSCENDENT tion that Weill must compose one of the works in the Lenya, together with Tilly Losch with the Les Ballets both the satirical and the deadly serious using a classi- programme, and that his wife, the German dancer Tilly 1933 troupe of dancers. Otto Pasetti and Albert Pe- cal symphonic methodology. ART Losch, be offered one of the roles. ters (tenors), Erich Fuchs (baritone), and Heinrich Ger- ler (bass) sang the roles of the Family, and the work The scenes are provided commentary by Anna’s KURT WEILL – THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS was performed with five other short ballets set to Family (mother, father, and two sons all sung by a On 9 April James met with Weill and offered him a music by Schubert, Milhaud, Saugeuet, Mozart, and male quartet), with the mother as a basso profundo On the morning of 21 March 1933, the composer commission to compose a ballet. Weill’s terms for ac- Beethoven. exclaiming her anxious concerns. Together they cari- Kurt Weill received a telephone call at the home of cepting was that his work not be an ordinary ballet but cature the German Singverein style, functioning as his stage designer Casper Neher, whom he was visit- instead be a ballet with song and performed as story, The press reviews the next day were mixed. It certainly the voice of Anna’s Family, interjecting their critical ing with his wife, the actor-singer Lotte Lenya. A friend complete with dance and acting singers. He also re- didn’t help that the songs were sung in German, creat- observations of her journey abroad via their corre- working at a local police station notified him that the quested that Cocteau be the librettist, and that James ing a language barrier that was imperceptible to most spondence with her. Brecht’s hymnal prayers to the SS were on their way to apprehend him at his apart- also produce his first Paris concert in London while the Frenchmen, and used a contradicting French title – Les almighty dollar mocks the religious chorale through ment, charging him with “Jewish cultural bolshevism” ballet itself would also be performed there. Cocteau Sept Péchés Capitaux. However, the audience re- its use of its tragic-comic barber-shop-style com- and of being a “degenerate artist.” Quickly, Weill declined the offer citing time constraints and James sponse was overwhelmingly positive. It would receive mentary. Throughout, the performances are in typical gathered what he could into a small suitcase from his suggested that instead Brecht be brought in on the a total of seven performances in Paris, ending on 19 Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt (“distancing effect”) by apartment before joining Lenya in Neher’s car, where project, as the public already were familiar with him June, with the production traveling onwards to London all of the singers, underscored by the caustic satire together with Neher’s wife Erika they quickly made through the Opéra de quat’sous. With an offer sent to open on 28 June at the Savoy Theatre, featuring the of the text. Moral choices are equated as “sins” by their escape towards the French border. On arriving, to Brecht, the plans for a ballet chanté (a sung ballet) same cast as in Paris. Anna I and her family, and Anna II has no choice but Lenya departed by train to Vienna, as she and Weill could now move forward. to comply, in scenes where Brecht displays the seven were in the middle of divorce proceedings (finalized on In London, the Lord Chamberlain’s Office insisted on sins as virtues. For him, a capitalist society forces the 18 September). Weill and the Nehers arrived in Paris The commission to Brecht was something of an olive changing the title to Anna Anna, fearful religious sen- petite bourgeois to deny a natural life, resulting in the safely on 23 March. It would become his home for the branch offered by Weill. The two had been engaged in sibilities would be offended. It received mostly nega- fragmented persona. The text reveals Brecht in his next two years, where he would compose some of his antagonistic bickering and legal battles after their Ma- tive reviews, with critics not understanding the text nor most minimalist style, with a characteristic cynicism most memorable works. hagonny success. Violence had been threatened, and the work’s intent, nor Lenya’s broken English that she set against Weill’s expressive melodic passages. It is lawsuits engaged, as each demanded their respective phonetically had learned before the performance. The this underlying tension in the work, enhanced by each Weill did not arrive in Paris an unknown. His Opéra de contributions take precedence. Brecht, now living in work would only be performed one more time during resigned reply by Anna II to her sister, that engages quat’sous (Three Penny Opera) had been previously exile in Switzerland and in need of funds, accepted the Weill’s and Brecht’s lifetimes, at the Royal Theatre in the listener in deep empathy. performed there on 14 October 1930 at the Theatre proposed offer. By 10 April he was in Paris to begin Copenhagen on 12 November 1936, and that produc- Montparnasse to critical and public acclaim. Its success work on the libretto. tion was halted due to the protests from the German had created further interest in his works, resulting in SYNOPSIS ambassador. Also, Brecht was resentful that his billing Anna I introduces herself as the “practical” the wealthy Parisian patron of music, the Vicomte de Prologue: The difficulties were not over. Brecht argued with the was secondary to James’ and Kochno’s and dismissed manager, and her dancer sister Anna II as the beau- Noailles, to write to Weill in Berlin in August of 1932 production team over their concept for the ballet, ulti- the ballet as second rate. Weill responded that it was tiful one, telling us they have set out from Louisiana inviting him to perform other compositions in Paris. mately threatening to leave the production altogether. “the finest score I’ve written up to now.” It was to be four weeks prior, with the intention of earning enough They agreed that Weill’s Mahagonny songspiel, Der Weill stepped in to offer a compromise, in that instead the very last collaboration by Weill and Brecht. money to send back to their family to build a small Jasager and four pieces from Aufsteig und Fall der of the Freudian psychological plot of the split person- house beside the Mississippi. The journey will take Stadt Mahagonny were to be performed in German ality as wished for by Balanchine and Kochno, it could By the summer of 1935, Lenya had reunited with Weill, seven years. Anna informs us that she is really one per- concert form, with Lenya engaged as a soloist along be further enhanced by Brecht’s critique of the indi- each having abandoned their other romantic pur- son, not two. with other artists imported from Berlin. On 11 December vidual existing in a capitalist society, thus maintaining suits. As the Nazi terror approached, they emigrated the concert was performed at the Salle Gaveau, con- his Marxist ideology. Brecht had been interested in to America, long mythologized in Brecht’s and Weill’s The Family sing of Anna as one ducted by Maurice Abravanel, resulting in unanimous Sloth (Unnamed City): the Marxist view of the personality formed by socio- works, arriving in New York City on 10 September and hope that she will soon show results in obtaining critical praise. The impressive list of luminary cultural economic processes since 1926 and it can be found in 1935. The two would remarry again in 1937. Like the money for the house. The sisters engage in blackmail figures who attended was also noted, consisting of An- many of his earlier plays. With the advent of psycho- two Annas, they had now come together, building a schemes on married couples in the first city they visit. dré Gide, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, Fernand Lé- analysis, the concept of the split-personality had been new home as Weill would embrace the style of the Anna II grows tired of this and wishes to sleep, but is ger, Darius Milhaud, and Pablo Picasso, among others. in vogue within the arts, so both Weill and Brecht were Broadway stage. scolded by Anna I, reminding her of their goal. Anna “It has been quite a few years since Paris has felt so familiar with the concept. But Brecht’s libretto offered II falls asleep on a park bench. Brecht makes a jibe to intense and so noble a tremor,” wrote Emile Vuillermoz no stage or ballet directions of any kind, so Balanchine Die sieben Todsünden shows Weill at the peak of his Christianity in the last strophe with a chorale-styled in Candide for his review on 15 December.