KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER Volume 3 , Number 2 Fall 1985

Whitman Songs from TRO/ Rock and Jazz Stars Pay TO ALL READERS!! EAM Tribute to Weill on New Beginning with our next issue (Spring Recording 1986), the Newsletter will discontinue use Kurt Weill's settings of four poems by Walt of mailing lists purchased from other orga­ Whitman, unprinted for decades, will be pub­ Kurt Weill's music has been interpreted by lished through an arrangement by The Rich­ many different performers, from Louis Arm­ nizations. If you are listed with the mond Organization (TRO) and European strong to David Bowie, but few if any record­ Music Library Association, College American Music Corp. Originally written for ings have offered the variety promised by •~ Music Society, or American Theatre tenor with piano accompaniment, the Whitman Tribute to Kurt \\eill," to be released in Octo­ Association, and if you suspect that Songs will be printed by European American ber on A&M Records. Rock and jazz artists you have been receiving the Newslet­ Music in versions for both high and low voice have been assembled by producers Hal Willner ter on this basis, please return the re­ and should be available by the end of 1986. and Paul Young for an unusual program of Weill sponse form on the back page to The songs, ("O, Captain! My Captain!," favorites. continue your subscription. Subscrip­ The most publicized cut is "Mack the Knife:' "Beat! Beat! Drums!;' "Dirge for Two Vet­ tions are free of charge. erans," and "Come Up From the Fields, Fa­ as sung by Sting, lead singer of the rock group ther") are among Weill's most class­ The Police, who is currently pursuing a solo ically-oriented American compositions, fusing a career as both a singer and an actor. Sting's style not unlike Lieder with the highly patriotic first solo album, released this swnmer, also re­ poetry of Whitman. The poems are among flects his interest in Brecht, if not Weill, with Productions Slated for United Whitman's reflections on the Civil War. ln­ rats such as "Children's Crusade" and "Moon Kingdom tended for Paul Robeson, the first three of the Over Bourbon Street:• The coming season in the United Kingdom songs were written during W>rld War Il (1942). Targeted for "hit single" status is "Septem­ will see a number of major performances of The fourth song was added in 1947 for a com­ ber Song" as sung by Lou Reed, a New York Kurt Weill's works. The Royal Shakespeare plete recording by tenor William Horne. Weill rocker who first earned fame with the Velvet Company's Happy End, directed by Di Trevis orchestrated three songs, the fourth was Underground and as a member of Andy and Stuart Hopps and conducted by Tony Cas­ scored by Carlos Surinach in 1957; the parts Warhol's circle - whom he was to lampoon in tro, began a IS-city tour on 30 August. This will be available for rental from EAM. his song "Walk on the Wild Side." One Reed production will visit small towns throughout album ("Metal Machine Music") contained four England, with a stop in Belfast for three days in sides of static; others have featured such dar­ November, before arriving for a long run in ing mate.rial as "Heroin;" "Street Hassle; ' "I Stratford from 9 December to 25 January. A Wcmna Be Black," and "Sally Can't Dance:' further tour of Northeastern England is also Reed has associated himself philosophically under discussion. with Weill's music for some time (See the David Atherton led the London Sinfonietta in Newsletter, \bi. m, No. 1). Das Berliner Requiem 4 September as part of Other highlights include "Youkali Tango" the BBC's Promenade Concert Series; Philip performed by the Armadillo String Quartet; Langridge, Steven Roberts, and Michael Rip­ "What WasSentto the Soldier's Wife" by Mar­ pon were soloists. The Scottish Opera's pro­ ianne Faithfull, one of rock's first and foremost duction of Rise and Fall of the City of prima donnas; Tom Waits' rendition of "What Mahag1mny plays through March and early Keeps a Man Alive?"; Carla Bley's "Lost in the April, with performances in Glasgow, Edin­ Stars;" the Vcm Dyke Parks jazz combo in a burgh, Aberdeen, and Newcastle-Upon-Tyre. mostly-instrumental medley from Johnny John­ David Alden, who directed the controversial son, and the Bower Brothers in 'i\rmy Song." "Kurt Weill Evening'' at the Israeli Festival in Jerusalem this summer (a review has been ex­ cerpted in this issue), will stage the opera, Berg, Weill Under Discussion David Fielding is the designer, and Simon Rat­ inDessau tle will conduct. ':,\!ban Berg and Kurt Weill: Two Outstand­ Ireland's Wexford Festival will also stage the ing Composers of the Early Twentieth Cen­ Mahagonnyopera in Wexford's Theatre Royal. tury" was the topic for this year's Dessau Simon Jolly conducts and Declan Donnellan di­ Symposium, the 13th such symposium held an­ rects a cast including Sherri Zannoth Oenny), nually in the famous Bauhaus. Musicologists Theodore Spencer Qimmy), and Nuala Willis from the Democratic Republic discussed the (Mrs. Begbick), with sets by Nick Ormerod in The first page of "Nichts ist die Welt composers in honor of the 100th anniversary of performances 25,28,31 October and 3 Novem­ mir," second song from Kurt Weill's Berg's birth and the 85th of Weill's, and in con­ ber of this year. Ofrah 's Lieder (1916), recently acquired junction with an exhibition on \'\eill's file and Also under consideration is a major produc­ by the Library of Congress. See "From work ("Kurt Weill: A Great Son of the City of tion of The Threepenny Opera at the National the Archives:• this issue. Dessau") also on display at the Bauhaus. Theatre in London this spring. 3. Proposals for local productions or perform­ 1986 GRANT GUIDELINES ances should demonstrate a previous record of artistic excellence, evidence of community support, and a potential for influence beyond the immediate area. College and University Performance and Prod11ction 4. Stock and amateur productions of The Types of Grants Grants. The Foundation will award up to 10 grants for Threepenny Opera and caberet perfonnances $2,000 each to colleges and universities in support of of ~ill's songs are not eligible for funding. The Kurt \'kill Fowidation for Music, Inc., is a not­ general production expenses for Kurt Weill's stage for-profit corporation which promotes public wider­ works. Awards will be made based upon the work to Evaluation Procedures standing and appreciation of the musical works by be perfonned, geographic distribution and the musi­ Kurt Weill. To this end, the Fowidation solicits pro­ After applications have been reviewed by the Foun­ cal excellence demonstrated by the application. All dation's staff, additional supporting materials (includ­ posals from individuals and non-profit org~tions works must be presented in fully staged versions us­ for funding of projects related to the pe!1Jetuatlon of ing recordings, recommendations, and samples of ing Weill's original orchestrations. Productions of The Kurt Weill's artistic legacy. For the 1986 funding per­ previous work) may be requested for consideration Threepenny Opera are not eligible for funding. iod. the Foundation is accepting proposals in one or by the Advisory Panel on Grant Evaluations, which Assistance for performances of concert works is also more of the following catagories: will make recommendations to the Board of Trust­ ~vailable in grants of up to $1,000 to cover expenses l. Research Grants ees. The Advisory Panel on Grant Evaluations shall including but not limited to increased rehearsal time, 2. Publication Assistance be composed of independent, prominent members guest soloist fees, royalty and rental costs, and pro­ 3. Dissertation Fellowships motion. from the musical, theatrical and scholarly communi­ 4. Travel Grants Professional and RegwnaJ Perjonnance a~ Prr1!1m­ ties. Grants will be awarded on an objective and non­ 5. College and University Pertoonance and Pro­ discriminatory basis. Grantee selection criteria will tion Grants. In addition to the above cons1derat1ons, duction Grants proposals from professional aod regional !heater include: 1) relevance and value of the proposed proj­ ect to the Foundation'.s purposes: 2) quality of the 6. Professional and Regional Performance and companies and concert groups should demonstrate Production Grants project; 3) evidence of the applicant's potenlial, moti­ that requested funds will be used to improve the mu­ 7. Translations/ Adaptations vation, and ability to carry out the project success­ sical qualities of the performance. Examples of rec­ ommended requests include funds for soloists, fully; and 4) evidence of the applicant's prior record of Descriptions of Categories orchestra fees, and extra rehearsals. achievement in the field covered by the project. Ap­ Translations/Adaptalions. Translation proposals will plicants will be informed of awards by February I, Research and Travel Grants. Fwiding in this category 1986. may be requested to support specific research. ex­ be accepted for projects which demonstrate an ade­ quate need for a new translation. Priority will be penses. Applicants must be pursuing a topic directly Application Information related to Kurt Weill and/or Lotte Lenya and must given to projects which will culminate in a public per­ submit a detailed outline ofthe proposed project. Tra­ formance of the translation. Adaptation projects will Preliminary applications for the 1986 awards must be be considered only for works in cases where the orig­ vel grants should be requested to reimburse reason­ received by 15 N011emher 1985, and should contain the able travel expenses to locations of primary source inal version is impossible to perlorm for reasons of following infonnation: material. incompleteness or justifiable practical and commer­ 1. A detailed description of the project. cial considerations. The Foundation will assist the ap­ P11blication Assistance. Funding in this category may 2. An up-to-date curriculum vita er resume for be requested to assist in expenses related to prepar­ plicant in securing the necessary peonissions from individuals; or a profile of purposes, activities, ing manuscripts for publication in a recognized schol­ the authors (or their estates) of the original texts. and past achievements, including11 list of refer­ arly medium. Funds may be requested for, but ~ot ences, for organizations. limited to, editing, indexing, design, and reproduction Fwiding Priorities 3. An itemized budget showing entire project ex­ fees. (Publisher subventions may be requested di­ Although the foundation does not have a long funding penses, income, and projected funding rectJy from the Foundation at any time and will be history from which to determine explicit funding pri­ sources. evaluated separately from the grants program.) orities. a few general inclinations may be observed: 4. Periormance Grant Fact Sheet (if applying for Disserlalion Fellowships. PhD. candidates may apply 1. Performance proposals which demonstrate a performance grant). for dissertation fellowships to assist in research activ­ musical excellence and authenticity are en­ Applications may be obtained by contacting: Kurt ities. The application must include a copy of the dis­ couraged. \'kill Foundation for Music, Inc., 142 West End Ave­ sertation proposal and two letters of recom­ 2. Research proposals which demonstrate the nue, Suite 1-R, New York, New York 10023. Tele­ mendation, one of which is from a faculty advisor, promise ofpublishab le results are encouraged. phone: (212) 873-1465.

the missing portions from the Rudy \lallee program KURT WEILL NEWSLEITER which adds ''Clickety-Clack" and "To WM!'' The AEI Vol. 3 , No. 2 FaJI 1985 LETTER liner notes are a littJe misleading in their credits be­ To the Editor: cause Jeanne Madden, who is featured in a bit of dia­ David Farne th, Editor logue, sings only as part of the chorus in William Madis on, Assistant Editor In your most recent issue of the Newslelter there fs a "Clickety-Clack"! The part of Toa on both the Joey Stephen Katten, Production Assistant review of the AEI reissue of Knickerbocker Holiday and AEI releases is sung in full by Jean Darling except (AEI ll48). r thought your readers might be inter­ for that one chorus biti Darling also performs almost ° Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. 1985 ested in the various source recording materials used all of the dialogue. The original Star-Tone issue of ex­ in compiling this reissue. The first issue of any of this cerpts lists the year 1938 as the broadcast date while 142 West End Avenue, Suite 1-R radio material came from "Stars Over Broadway" the AEI says 1945. The exact date of the Theatre New York, New York 10023 (Star-Tone ST-214 mono), an anthology of various Guild broadcast is unknown to me, but it is announced U.S.A. Broadway shows which contained a portion of the on the Rudy \lallee album that the show is CIIITenUy (212) 873-1465 Lady in the Dark radio version (also released on AEI running, so that would be the 1938 date Star-Tone ll46, compl.ete) and the following selections from the uses. Board of Trustees "Theatre Guild On The Air" version of Knicker­ DAVID HUMMEL Kim Kowalke, President bocker Holiday: "One Touch of Alchemy," ·rut Hail the The Archives ofthe American Musical Theatre Lys Symonette, Vice-President Political Honeymoon;· and "The Scars:• Some time Henry Marx, Vice-President after these excerpts were issued, the album of the Guy Stern, Secretary complete broadcast Ooey 7243 mono) came out. In Milton Coleman, Treasurer 1973, Mark 56 Records issued an album of radio ma­ EDITOR'S REPLY: , Harold Prince terial from the old Rudy Vallee "Fleischmann 's Hour" Norman Nadel's A Pictorial History of the Theatre Julius Rudel series, One half of side one is devoted to a mlni-ver­ Guild (New York, 1969) lists the air date oflht "The­ sion of Knickerbocker Holiday. This is with Walter alre Guild On The Air" P,od11diim of Knickerbocker Foundation Staff Holiday as 30 December 1945. Huston, Jeanne Madden, ;uid members of the original Kim Kowalke, President cast chorus and is conducted by Maurice Abravanel. Lys Symonette, Musical Executive This is announced prior to the recording by Vallee and David Farneth, ArchivisUDirector of Programs he also states that the program is being broadcast William Madison, Program Assistant during the run of the show. The AEI reissue uses all Stephen Katten. Secretary of the Joey album of the Theatre Guild version and

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE2 NEWS IN BRIEF Foundation and EAM Sign Comprehensive Agency/ Publishing Agreement Following more than a year of negotiations, the Kurt \¼!ill Foundation for Music, lnc. re­ cently signed a comprehensive agency/publishing agreement with European American Music Corporation (Valley Forge, PA), and new agreements with Universal Edition, \¼:ill's original European publisher. The Weill association with EAM began in 1981 when Lone Lenya entered into a publishing agreement which subsequently, with assistance from members of the Founda­ tion, led to the publication of "The Unknown Kurt ~eill Songbook", the Cello Sonata, and Recardare. Under the new agreement, EAM will continue to function as the Foundation's agent for all first-class stage productions in the United States, including Broadway, Off-Broadway, opera. cavalcades, revues, films, videos. dance, television, and other grand rights uses, as well as represent those works published under the 1981 agreement. In addition, the Foundation has assigned to EAM its publishing rights for the British Commonwealth countries (United King­ dom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa). EAM will also act as an international publisher on behalf of the Foundation for all newly discovered compositions. European American Music has begun an ambitious 8-year printing schedule and both EAM and UE have agreed to keep all works in print and available for sale and rental. ln the next three years we can expect the following new publications from EAM: Happy End (new parts and full score). String Quartet in B minor (score and parts). !,inn Tod im Wald (full score), Marie galante (piano-vocal score), Au[stieg und Fall der Stadl Mahagomzy (full score and corrected rental parts), Mahagomzy Songspiel (full score and corrected edition of the piano-vocal score), and a songbook of 10 to 15 unpublished German songs. New publications following these will include Der Lindbergh/lug. Orchestra Suite in 6 movements, and the full scores of Der neue Orpheus, The Eternal Road, Der Silbersee and Die Burgschaft. UE will offer reprint editions of the following: "Sieben Stucke aus der Dreigroschenoper" (UE 9969 and UE 9969-B, simplified version), Frauentanz CUE 7748 piano score). Der Zar liisst sich pholographieren CUE 8864, piano-vocal score with English text by Salter), Der Pro­ tagonist (UE 8387, piano-vocal score with English te>..1 by Salter), Royal Palace (UE 8690 piano-vocal score), Di£ Burgschaft (UE 1525 piano-vocal score), and Der Lindbergh/lug CUE 9938 with new English text). Weill Rocks In spite of these recent changes, many former publishing agreements still remain in effect: Kurt Weill 's participation in rock and roll con­ for instance, all non-dramatic rights for the American works will stay with TRO, Inc.; Chappell tinues unabated. Recent issues of the Newslet­ will continue to represent the same works outside the U.S. Stock and amateur rights in the ter have reparted new recordings of "Mack the U.S. are represented as follows: Threepenny Opera, Lady in the Dark, Street Scene, Knicker­ Knife" by the punk group King Kurt, and "Sep­ bocker Holiday and Lost in the Stars with Rodgers & Hammerstein Music Library; Happy End tember Song" by British singer Ian McCuJJoch; and johnny Johnson with Samuel French; Fr()m Berlin to Broadway with Music Theatre Inter­ as noted in this issue, several major rock and national. Most foreign publishing arrangements (Universal Edition, B. Schott Sohne, Heugel, jazz artists are featured on the new album, "A etc.) are unchanged. EAM will publish a guide to the works of Kurt \\~ill which will for the first Tribute to Kurt Weill:' A few further develop­ time clarify the diverse and confusing publishing arrangements associated with Weill's ments worthy of note: works.This guide will be an invaluable source for determining the applicable publisher for each According to recent news items, a new rock work in the relevant territory. band has formed under the name of Gruppe Ze­ Heretofore, American performers and scholars have had difficulty obtaining copies of scores bra in the German Democratic Republic. The since Universal Edition was not under contract to sell the music in this country. Continuing in young members of Zebra apparently devote its efforts to increase the availability of Weill's music throughout the world, the Kurt Weill the bulk of their program to rock versions of Foundation is pleased to announce this new agreement which will serve to improve access to Weill standards from Die Dreigrosche,wper, the music and insure that never again will these works be out-of-print or unavailable. Happy End, and MaJiagamzy. On the other side of the border, the papular West German singer NEH Sponsors Research Awards will be made to help defray travel Marius Milller-Westerhagen has released his Travel costs, subsistence and lodging, reproduction own rendition of "Mack the Knife" to enthusi­ The National Endowment for the Humanities and certain other associated research ex­ astic reviews. invites applications for the "Travel to Collec­ penses. The grants cannot suppart salary re­ Frankie Goes to Hollywood, who broke the tions" Program enabling American scholars to placement or released time from the applicant's charts in Britain with "Relax" and "Two travel to research collections such as the Weill/ regular employment. Applications for grants of Tribes," have developed ''The Equation," a Lenya Archive at Yale and the \\eill-Lenya Re­ less than $500 are ineligible due to the dispro­ symbolic message too arcane to reprint here. search Center in New York. The program pro­ partionately high administrative costs of proc­ This logo is emblazoned across everything vides grants of $500 for consultation of essing such propasals. from socks to shopping bags, available through materials essential to a scholar's research but The deadline for propasals for travel to begin their recording company, [sland Records. Each not readily available near the scholar's home or after 1 December 1985 has passed, but more product is named after a suitably outre artist: regular place of work. information about the program can be obtained Edith Sitwell, Jean Genet, or Andre Gide, for Applicants for these grants may be members by contacting: example. Prominently featured is "The Kurt of college and university faculties as well as Program Officer, Travel to Collections Weill Sweatshirt:' One has to look at the bro­ other individuals who conduct advanced re­ Division of Fellowships and Seminars, chure, however, to find out that it's a Kurt Weill search in the humanities. Applicants need not Room316FST Sweatshirt - neither his name nor his picture be employed by an academic institution to be National Endowment for the Humanities appears anywhere on the shirt - and Frankie eligible. The research involved cannot be for 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW do not perform any of \¼!ill's songs (or Sitwell work leading to an academic degree, and the Washington, D.C. 20506 poetry). The Sweatshirt is modelled here by grants cannot suppart travel to professional (202) 786-0464 another trendsetting We.ill-interpreter. actor meetings or conferences. Burgess Mereditl1.

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE3 the artificial barriers erected upon the lyric THE PRESIDENT'S COLUMN stage in defense of what he dismissed as the Everything's Coming Up OPERA ''splendid isolation of opera." The dynamic ten­ sion arising from the dramatically pertinent co­ by Kim H. Kowalke And now an ironic flood of the reverse: Sweeney existence of learned and popular musical idioms Todd "deserves" to be called an OPERA., while and Weill's obstinate refusal to sacrifice either That perennial but unanswerable question, some critics even swallowed whole the notion dramatic or musical values make his works par­ "But is it really an OPERA?", popped up again that West Side Story has now been revealed as ticularly vulnerable to the hazards of that no­ in the press last season with surprising regular­ the great American OPERA Bernstein has yet man's land between the institutions dedicated ity and vehemence. An uncut Porgy and Bess to write. exclusively to OPERA and those offering more was finally mounted at the Met, Joseph Papp Nowhere are the fallacies and futility of using populist brands of musical tbeater. reduced la Boheme to Off-Broadway melo­ "opera" as a qualitative label more sadly dem­ This ongoing problem was very apparertt drama for Linda Ronstadt, Hal Prince restaged onstrated than in the new recording of the 1957 from performances I attended during my Sweeney Todd for City Opera, where Beverly musical with a cast of international opera stars. seven-week stay in Europe on matters-Weill Sills announced an annual spring season-of clas­ In his commentary to the recording, Bernstein last spring. I saw Mahagomiy and the Kurt­ sic musicals, and last- and surely least - DG stated that he didn •t think of the piece as an Weill-Revilt in West Berlin at the Theater des released a grotesque recording of West Side opera: "People are always telling me it is, and Westens, whose repertory centers on operetta Story with a cast conceivable only to a crazed I'm very happy they think so." Why? Given the and American musical theater. Der Silbersee marketing e.\'.ecutive. Jn connection with each general level o{ performance on random eve­ was produced by a Schauspielbaus in Karl­ event, at least one notable commentator in­ nings in the world's major opera houses, West Marx-Stadt, while the Westdeutsche Rundfunk voked the precedent of Kurt Weill, either to Side Story would fare much better if it aban­ mounted a radio production of Mahagonny. (All expose such projects as unworthy pretenders doned any aspirations to share a season with are reviewed by others in this issue.) I was par­ to the operatic pedigree or to authenticate the Martha and La Rondine. Presumably, how­ ticularly struck by the fact that many of Weill's legitimacy of their claims by comparison with ever, Bernstein himself must have believed slllge works seem to have no natural institu­ Weill's. The chief music critic of the New M>rk that this classic of American musical theater tional home. The brilliant Weill-Revue suc­ Times sidestepped the debate over ?orgy's could survive the phony, bloated, and ulti­ ceeded at the Theater des ~stens because it qualifications as an opera by declaring that it is mately vulgar treatment it gets on the record­ was tailored specifically to showcase the con­ "at least as legitimately an opera as Maha­ ing. I'm not referring merely to the miscasting, siderable strengths of the young resident com­ gonny and Street Scene:' A feature in Opera or to the neglect of virtually every dramatic pany, but its Mahagonny and the East German News suggested that the operatic recording of element. It is on purely musical grounds where Silbersee lacked the required vocal resources i;l1ist Side Story would prompt reevaluation of the recording sinks into a swamp of cruel self­ that are rarely available outside the major op­ that piece like "the theater works of Kurt Weill, parody. It is a collision of artists whose talents era houses. It is hardly coincidental that the which are more than they once seemed to be." do not include the requisite naturalness, sim­ only two major stage productions of Maha­ I have yet to come across a viable definition plicity, or conviction of phrasing, tone quality, gonny still in repertory, other than the Met's, or proscription for OPERA, a term that post­ musical style, and vocal technique with a score are at the Theater des Westens and the The­ dates by two generations the Florentine Cam­ of more symphonic sophistication and technical ater am Gartnerplatz in Munich, both OPER­ erata 's initial attempts at "dramma per craft than a good portion of the standard oper­ ETTA houses. No wonder that neither musica." It would be surprising, indeed, if a sin­ atic repertory. The famous OPERA singers de­ production is musically satisfying. Jon Vickers gle generic term could universally encompass stroy the material, not because they sing "too once said that he never sang the role of Jimmy the varied national traditions of Western musi­ well" or sound "too trained," but because the because it is more demanding vocally than Tris­ cal drama. spanning nearly four centuries. For amalgam of of musical traditions manifest in the tan. Unlike i¼st Side Story, inflated beyond any set of proposed criteria to weed out sup­ best of American musical theater can't with­ recognition by opera singers on the recording. posedly less venerable brands of lyric theater stand the self-indulgence of mere vocal opu­ Mahagonny simply can't succeed without per­ (such as operetta or musical comedy) from the lence. But I doubt that even an opera house formers whose musical skills are equal to the operatic real thing, one can find enough would allow Carreras and Te Kanawa to kaleidoscopic demands of the material. Yet the counter-examples to c-onfound the categories. butcher da Ponte's Italian as badly as they man­ majority of institutions mounting the work can­ The composers' or producers' original desig­ gle Sondheim's English. Troyanos' braying not attract singers of that caliber, much less nation is often deceptive, whereas comparative chest voice can substitute for Anita's "Broad­ conductors of international stature. Perhaps musical complexity or vocal demands are even way belt" no more than Streisand can sing that is why the WDR studio production and its less reliable. Subject matter can't be restricted Turandot. Granted, one cannot e,xpect any two concert performances of Mahagonny came to the serious or lofty, and any arbitrary ratio of singer to cope with the entire spectrum of mu­ as such a revelation to both critics and audi­ music to dialogue might throw out Carmen and sical style or vocal weight and color; the wise ences. A stellar cast could be assembled under Die Zauberjlote with the proverbial bathwater. ones recognize early on the portions of the rep­ a very talented young conductor for a short In devoting a whole article in the New lvrk Post ertoire which fall within range of their own tem­ period of intensive rehearsal without the addi­ to the "fuzzy line between B'way and opera," perament, technique, and instrument. Ethel tional drain on resources of a full staging. That Clive Barnes set aside implicit hierarchical ar­ Men:nan didn't sing Briinnhilde. and Birgit the result was the most "dramatic" reading of guments by cannily submitting that "opera is Nilsson never played Mama Rose. Both were the piece I've ever encountered should sur­ something that takes place in an opera house." great singers. prise no one who understands as well as Weill At least such a circular definition of OPERA If you scoff at that comparison, just listen to did the notion of "dramma per musica:' avoids the most insidious aspect of any debate Renata Scotto try to sing "Over the Rainbow." Bernstein's final word on i¼st Side Story is over whether a given work is or isn't. Many If the opera house hopes to expand its reper­ that "it is what it is." Weill's works "are what critics, composers, and OPERA-goers still tory to include a wider range of musical theater they are}' too. But unfortunately the same can mistake a descriptive category that perpetu­ than OPERA, then it must, as Clive Barnes be said for today's musical and theatrical insti­ ates elitist roots for an aesthetic or teclinical states, "treat Broadway with the respect its tutions as well. Many of Weill's pieces simply value judgment, as if OPERA on the label war­ traditions demand." Porgy and Bess and Maha­ transcend the traditional categories of reper­ rantied the product. However, a much larger gonny have troubles in the opera house today tory on which institutions tend to be struc­ population continues to recoil from the box of­ not because they're not OPERAS but because tured. More debates about labels won't alter fice whenever the term, with all its historical their extraordinary demands exceed the ability the harsh reality of the present situations. connotations. is invoked. I recall, for example, of our operatic institutions to accommodate Weill's works ''are what they are;• but it will be with no little delight Harold Schonberg's series them. a long time before they can be allowed to be of petulant articles in 1979 protesting that Ma­ These issues are, of course, central to the just that within the present system of institu­ hagonny wasn't an OPERA, and didn't belong present state of production and perception of tionalized tbeatei: atthe Met, where every performance sold out. Weill's works, since he continually assaulted

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE4 Kurt Weill and European Dance Theater After WorldWarH A Critic's View by Horst Koegler nya. Until then Brecht had, in effect Heckroth furnished a modernistic skeletal' set .. disowned" the work; the text was not in~ which added little to, if it did not actually detract Now, more than 50 years after its premiere eluded among his collected works. After his from, the atmosphere accentuated by the per­ at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, if death, Weigel and Lenya warred over numer­ iod costumes. Compared to Ter-Arutunian's Die sieben Todsiinden has not become an actual o_us copyright issues including publication designs for Balanchine's New York production classic of the contemporary ballet repertory, it nghts and royalty division for the ballet. Their - spectacular, glittery. even "kitschy" - has established itself among the ballets regu­ '.1ght became a juicy topic for German journal­ Heckrotb's looked shabby and very "petit larly mounted in new productions throughout ists. and the ensuing uproar dissuaded any rep­ bourgeois." Europe. After Balachine's first post-war re­ u_table Intendant ~om mounting the ballet. At the time, I found Gsovsky's production vival in 1958, the "Ballett mit Gesang," which smce the courts rrught be called upon to inter­ very mimetic, offering little dance. I had imag­ had lain unpublished and unperformed for more vene at any time. Thus Hamburg abandoned its ined a more ballet-oriented staging and there­ than 20 years, quickly assumed its rightful posi­ plans and the first revival of the staged work fore was surprised when Lenya told me that tion next to Die Dreigrosclzenoper and Maha­ took place under Balanchine at the New York Balanchine 's 1958 production relied even more gonny within the Weill/Brecht canon. Over the City Ballet on 4 December 1958. with Lenya as heavily on mime as its basic substance. In my Anna I. next decade, at least 44 European companies review I hailed the Frankfurt production as a mounted productions. Recently two new re­ Lenya's recording and the success of Balan­ perfectly realized panoptical view of the Ameri­ cordings of the ballet have been released. and chine's production stimulated much interest in can "playboy'' bourgeoisie - a marvelous Kenneth MacMillan, resident choreographer of Europe; hardly anyone still remembered the piece of modem theater with biting characteri­ the British Royal Ballet, mounted for Granada few performances in Paris and London in 1933 zations. While most German critics shared my Television his third version of the ballet, the or in Copenhagen in 1936. When Die sieben opinion, Edmund Tracey declared in the Lon­ second production of The Seven Deadly Sins Todsunden reached the stage of the Frankfurt don Observer: "Tatyana Gsovsky's choreogra­ broadcast in England during the 1983-84 sea­ Opera House on 5 April 1960, it capped an all­ phy was a not altogether happy mi.,ture of the son. Although 1do not have access to all of the Weill triple bill. While the one-act operas Der naturalistic, the gymnastic, and the sexy. What relevant statistics, having followed European Protagonist and Der Zar lass/ sich photo­ is so precise and sharply etched in the words ballet performances I sense that performances graphieren were tepidly received. the ballet and music became, in the sets and in some - of Die sieben Todsiinden have outnumbered was unanimously acclaimed. Lenya's personal not all - of the movements, vague." those of that other "ballet with singing," appearance - her first in any stage production The numerous productions that followed in Stravinsky's Pulcinella - let alone his Rinard. in Europe since 1935 - assured the success of rapid succession proved the validity of a variety The German premiere of Die sieben Todsun­ the premiere. But another decisive factor was of approaches; no production emerged as a den in Frankfurt during 1960 marked the first the Anna II of Karin von Aroldingen, an 18- model or standard. These productions also staging of a Weill ballet in Europe after \¾">rid year-o!d newcomer of striking beauty and racy demonstrated the difficulty of escaping Lenya 's War □. Although the Hamburg State Opera had attractmn. (Two years later she joined the New seemingly definitive portrayal of Anna I. With announced a production for the 1957-58 season, York City Ballet.) Tatyana Gsovsky Germany's Lenya's performances, her recording, and the it was cancelled when Helene Weigel. Brecht's leading choreographer, whose ho~e base was printed score offering only an inauthentic, widow, and Lenya could not agree on contrac­ the ballet company of West Berlin's Stadtische transposed version (without any note to that tual terms. Lenya had privately published a vo­ Oper, staged Die sieben Todsunden for Frank­ effect). the role was predominantly claimed by cal score in 1955 in a piano reduction by ~-T?e pr~uction featured not only Leoya, a European singers with jazz or cabaret leanings: Wilhelm Briickner-Riiggeberg, who trans­ living link with the theatrical traditions of the Cleo Laine, Georgia Brown, Annie Ross. He­ posed the score downward and (for the 1956 Weimar Republic, but another hotline-connec­ len Vita, Gisela May, and Milva. None of them recording) altered the orchestration to accom­ tion, designer Hein Heckroth. Celebrated as made one forget Lenya's husky periormance modate the lower range of the 57-year-old Le- the designer of Kurt Jooss's Der grtlne Tisch, but all adopted Lenya 'slower version. I did not see MacMillan's first production (for the Edin­ burgh Festival in 1961. with dancers from the Western Theatre Ballet), but it horrified Lenya so much that she withdrew from the cast dur­ ing rehearsals. MacMillan replaced her with Cleo Laine, whom Clive Barnes found "much too warm-hearted a personality for the coldly calculating Anna. The lovable Cleo - thank God! - just ain't that kind of girl:' Peter Hey­ worth liked the work and especially Weill's mu­ sic but had little sympathy for MacMillan's "cozy little charade" that "reduces satire to sentiment." By that time, however, the ballet had en­ joyed a remarkable production by Maurice Be­ jart in Brussels, where it was staged on one of the first programs of his recently founded Bal­ let of the Twentieth Century. Bejart and his de­ signer, Rudolf Kufner, evoked the Berlin of the Twenties in staging the work as a series of "morality-emblems," allegorical pictures with moralistic inscriptions popular in the Renais­ Allegra Kent in Balanchine's The Seven Deadly Sins. New York City Balle t, 1958. sance and ~aroque periods. Brecht himself

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGES published a number of analogous ''photo­ grams:' modern-day emblems that combined topical photographs with precise and often sa­ tiric epigrams. Each of Bejart's scenes began and ended in a photographic freeze; Die sieben Thdsunden thereby became almost a ballet-bal­ lad, taking its cue from the "Moritat'' that opens Die Dragrosclie,wper. Although I found Ursula Kubler too "cultivated'' a singer for Anna I, Janine Charrat, well-known as a chore­ ographer, was sensational as Anna II. In moth­ green taffeta, her hair like a ginger mop above her night-shadowed eyes, Charrat danced the role as if she were just another piece of mer0 chandise to reveal the disparity between her bourgeois longings and her resignation to the rules of the marketplace. Whatever she pre­ tended to be, she always remained the ex­ ploited and miserable creature who would have much preferred to stay with her family back in Louisiana - or in her Berlin tenement, for that matter. Within three years of its European revival, the ballet had been staged in Karlsruhe. Braunschweig, Dresden. Stockholm, Paris, Rome, Lucerne, and in both Yugoslavia and Members of the Wuppertaler Tanztheater in a scene from Pina Bausch's staging Czechoslavakia. In 1963-64 the German State of Die sieben 'Ibd.sunden. The production has its American premiere at the Opera in East Berlin challenged its counterpart Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in October, 1985. in West Berlin as each mounted its own version stant prop, but even amplified she could not be chestra. But more likely, the work has rarely, if of Die sieben Todsunden. The aesthetic, if not understood. Judith Domys was too classical a ever, found its appropriate choreographer/di­ political, battle was clearly won by the East. ballerina to be a convincing Anna IT. The pro­ rector who can match the hybrid nature of the The first East German production fell to Grit.a duction as a whole was so ill-received that piece itself. Such a choreographer would most Kraetke at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, some critics suggested that the opera house probably not emerge from the "academic" where Erich Kleiber had premiered ~ill's bal­ had purposely undermined the whole project to background of a Balanchine or a Gsovsky but let-opera Royal Palace in 1927. On the enlight­ protect decent Berliners from ''communist in­ from the modem dance camp, where a social­ ened double-bill with Stravinsky's Histoire du filtration." One journalist accused Gsovsky of critical, perhaps even Marxist slant might soldat, this production of the "Sins" featured committing the eighth deadly sin: boredom. mesh with the work's special characteristics. Gisela May of the Berliner Ensemble. who By the mid-Sixties, like the two Annas on The younger Hanya Holm or Anna Sokolow later recorded the work for Deutsche Gram­ their journey through the big cities, Di,e sieben might fit that description, but so far I have en­ mophon in the lower version, as Anna I. At the Todsiinden had made the rounds to major the­ countered only one staging of this kind: Pina time this raised questions about the failure of aters throughout Europe. None of the produc­ Bausch's 1976 staging in Wuppertal. Of all the Brecht's own theater company to include the tions, however, restored either Weill's original performances of ~ •s theatrical works to work in its repertory. Apparently, after orchestration to the pit or a soprano to the role cross my path in the past 30 years - including Brecht's death. the Berliner Ensemble of Anna I. In fact, the first performance since all those Mahagonnys and Dreigroschenopers - adopted the attitude that he·d expressed to­ 1936 of the original version did not occur until this production of Die sieben 1/xlsunden left the ward the ballet in 1933: "really not very signifi­ 1968, when Colin Davis conducted Evelyn Lear most indelible impression. It was paired on the cant." Ilse Hurtig, a vivacious dancing actress and the BBC Symphony in a concert setting in Weill double-bill with Fiirchtet Euell nicht with strong balletic technique, gave Anna II London. All of the staged productions seemed (Don't Be Afraid), a pastiche concocted from much poignancy although, astonishing for East to be rather short-lived, including Kenneth portions of Di.e Dreigroschenoper, Kleine Dre­ Berlin, littJe social-critical sting. Kraetke obvi­ MacMillan's second go at the piece for Covent groschemnusik, Das Berliner Requiem, Maha­ ously relished delineating the depravity and Garden in 1973. The critics generally liked it no go,my, and Happy End that might be more corruption of the "petit bourgeoisie," but the better than his first attempt, and again Anna T succinctly described as a ~ill hit-parade. The posters and photograph montages used to was sung by a husky pop singer, Georgia entire evening was a model of what is called cover long costume changes slowed the pace Brown, ,vith Anna II danced by Jennifer Pen­ Dramaturgie in the German theater - the dra­ unbearably. The production remained in the ney. Today MacMillan's production is remem­ matic concept that binds every element and repertory until 1974 and toured to Vienna. W!.r­ bered mainly by virtue of Andrew Porter's every moment into a personal and powerful vi­ saw, Budapest. Copenhagen. and Helsinki. ringing attack in The Financial Times, wlrich sion. The production in ~st Berlin, again directed exposed the continued corruption of ~ill's Bausch attacked a world dominated by males and choreographed by Gsovsky, created a score. He argued that the purity and innocence and ordered according to their needs. Females scandal. It was supposed to be a "landmark" of Lenya's bright soprano voice in 1933 was functioned as disposable products. non-return­ production, since none of Brecht's works had central to the dramatic texture in that it con­ able and not to be returned to. Both ballets em­ previously been mounted in the city's state­ trasted so dramatically with the weary cyni­ erged as revue-ballets, but very differentJy subsidized theaters after the war. Gsovsky cism of the text. What this meant, of course, from Balanchine's approach. Instead of s how­ chose for her designer the painter Hubert Ara­ was that everyone who had come to know Die ing the audience the gaudy and glittering ftont­ tym, who had virtually no previous theatrical sieben Todsiinden through the available record­ side, Bausch took us backstage to the experience. Using the large stage of the opera ings or previous staged productions had a mis­ staleness of unfulfilled desires and dreams. to house as a huge canvas, Aratym drowned the conception of the authentic work. It wasn' t the squalor of human misery. As if sketched by production in an onslaught of shrieking colors. until 1983 that the original score was released the choreographic pencil of a Georg Grosz, Those who had not seen Gsovsky's production on recordini!:. these were matching pieces of acidic social crit­ in Frankfurt could not fathom her considerable That so few productions of Die sieben Tod­ icism pleading desperately for pity on those success on the earlier occasion. Hanne Wieder siinden have enjoyed a lengthy lifespan may be "poor and wretched creatures known as bad the dubious distinction of introducing the attributable to its idiosyncratic demands for five women." The two ballets provided large roles microphone to the role of Anna I as her con- singers in addition to a cast of dancers and or- for two very different types of dancers. As

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE6 Anna n Josephine Anne Eodicott looked like a pointing prophetically into the 1930's and the double-size Lynn Seymour, while the lead in holocaust of the Second \\brld War when, fi­ nally, Berlin was left in ruins... Mahagonny's "Lost in the Stars": F,,rchtel Eucknicht (the title, ofcourse. is that earthquake'' had truly arrived. of a Salvation Anny chorus in Happy Ena') was Bruce staged the Mahagmmy Songspiel as a danced by Marlis Alt, so skinny, vulnerable, racy burlesque very much in the style of Caba­ Conflict and and transparent that one looked twice to see ret. The central figure of a master of ceremo" her at all. This was by no means a beautiful nies recalls Joel Grey in the musical and film. Compromise ·• Ballettabend," but one left the theater even if Bruce's creation had a different look and touched to one's innermost by the combination fiber. Each of the songs introduces a new set of of HoUywood drive and Wuppertal tristesse. seedy characters costumed by Pamela Marre If Fttrchtet Euch nichl is a posthumous ballet as if they had just stepped out of one of Georg that \¾!ill did not live to see, it's uncertain that Grosz's caricatures or Otto Dix's paintings. At by Bennett Oberstein Weill ever witnessed Antony Tudor's and Hugh the end, a white-suited God-figure preaches in Laing's judgmenl of Paris either. Created in vain against the vicious events. If that part of 1q3g for the London Ballet and in the repertory the ballet, as John Percival lamented in the EDITOR'S NOTE: Lost in the Stars, Kurt of the Ballet Rambert since 1940, it was danced London Times, "trots out every fading cliche of !#ill and Maxwell Anderson's adaptation of to an arrangement of music from Die Dreigros­ Brecht-W!ill staging:• Bruce was more suc­ Alan Paton 's novel Cry, the Beloved Country, chenoper compiled by Tudor himself. At first cessful with the brooding despair and ap­ was Wei/I's last completed work. Socially far only an unauthorized arrangement for two pia­ proaching doom of the second part. (The ahead ofits time, the play concerns Stephen Ktt­ nos, the score was orchestrated for pit orches­ company presented only the second part dur­ malo, an "Um/tmdisi," or spiritual leader, tra by the time of its American premiere by the ing its American and French tours in 1983.) whose son accidentally kills a while man. Sadly. American Ballet Theatre in 1940. Frequently The nightmare of the Songspiel faded into the the issue of Aparlheid in South Africa is more revived by the Ballet Rambert and also occa­ harsh reality of the Requiem, the aftermath of topical today than it was when Anderson wrote sionally .mounted by other companies, The war. A fierce double duet to the "Great Hymn his play. Lost in the St.ars, with Todd Duncan as ]udgment of Paris is a sardonic piece set in a of Thanksgiving'' opens and closes this part. Kumalo, opened in New 10rk 30 October 1949, sordid nightclub in the Thirties. In an obvious An infinitely touching funereal adagio for the and was directed by Rouben Manwttlian, now update of the legend of Paris and his judgment drowned girl goes beyond specific association 88 and livinl[ in Beverly Hills. Mamoulian 's of the beauty contest among Venus, Juno, and \vith Rosa Luxemburg to the universal. "The prior Broadway credits included Oklahoma! and Minerva, a drunken customer chooses among Ballad of the Unknown Soldier" is staged as a Carousel: DuBose Heyward's Porgy and three tatty showgirls, each of whom dances to quartet for war-bruised soldiers, a dance of raw George Gershwin 's Porgy and Bess; St. Louis convince him of her charms. In the end, the muscularity and dogged determination. It lin­ W>man with Pearl Bailey and /he Nicholas women rob him of all his possessions. Although gers in one's mind as a haunting indictment of Brothers; in Hollywood, Manwulian directed the ballet oozes with period charm, it is not sur­ the evil of war, more than holding its own with Becky Sharp, the first Technicolor fealure, prising that W!ill politely dissociated himself Jooss's Green Table. Queen Christina, Silk Stockings, and many o/h­ from the project. Neither the music nor the In the past season alone, choreographers ers. The following arlicle, excerpied from Mr. sleazy scenario fit the new image he was mus­ have continued to discover W!ill 's music as Oberslein 's doctoral dissertation on the ac­ tering for Broadway. But if he did attend a per­ source material. The recent Kurt-Weill-Revue claimed director, is based on /he author's inter­ formance in 1940, he saw Agnes de Mille dance at Berlin's Theater des Westens made head­ views with Mamoulian and with Duncan in the role of Venus: three years later de Mille lines with a "getanzte" Kleine Dreigro­ 1973-74. All quotations, tmkss olhemise indi­ played a role in another "Venus'' -as choreog­ sclzenmusik (a piece lo which small American cated, are those ofMr. Mamoulian. rapher of Weill 's two baUets in One Touch of Ui- groups have been dancing for a number of Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson knew 111,s. years); in Gelsenkirchen, a ballet adaptation of Rouben Mamoulian, at least by reputation, full Maybe it was The Judgmenl ofPari s that in­ Schnitzler's Der Reige11 has employed songs well when they invited him to lunch at the Plaza spired Christopher Bruce, a longtime member from the "Unknown Kurt Weill" album. Oak Room in New York one day in 1949. Having of the Ballet Rambert (first as a dancer, then as Bausch's Die sieben Todsunden and Furch/et completed Lost in the Stars, Weill and Anderson a choreographer), to embark upon his Berlin Euch nicht will reach the United States this fall were looking for sound professional advice. Requiem. Having grown up as an artist with Tu­ at the Next Wave Festival of the Brooklyn Mamoulian 's credentials and the special quali­ dor's ballet derived from the music for Die Academy of Music, having enjoyed a successful ties he possessed - his proven .ability to han­ Dreigroschenoper, Bruce choreographed his tour of Italy this summer. In Osnabtiick, Der dle large, racially mixed casts, and to fuse two-part ballet to the Mahagom1y Songspiel and Lindberghflug was grouped with such all­ music, comedy, and drama - made him a natu­ Das Berliner Requiem. l.n his program note for American pieces as Bernstein's Fancy Free in a ral source for first-hand information on the stiU­ the premiere in London on 11 March 1982, dance evening entitled "I Love New York!' novel concept of black th.eate.r on Broadway. Bruce wrote: Althougb Weill's first completed work for the But composer and dramatist had more than ad­ Although stylistically very different, it stage, Die Zaubernachl, was a children's "bal­ vice on their minds. seemed to me a good idea lo put the Maha­ let with singing}' he would be very surprised to Mamoulian had just returned from a vacation go,my S011gs/J/el and Das Berliner Requiem to­ learn that his music has claimed a significant in Haiti and the Bahamas, and each time he gether to fonn the score for my ballet Berlin role in contemporary dance during the past mentioned his appreciation for Caribbean black Re,paem. Both pieces were an assault on con­ quarter-century. Although ballet and/or panto­ culture, Anderson and \¾!ill nudged each other. temporary values and behavior. I feel that the mime played a central role in several of his Ger­ At length, Weill and Anderson confessed that situation has changed little since they were written, and the conclusions drawn are still man operas and dance figured prominently in they had arranged the meeting to ask Ma­ pertinent. Mah(Jgomiy So~el is an attack most of his Broadway musicals, at the time of moulian to stage Lost in the Stars. They were on a decadent bourgeoisie, and following his death Weill was as intentionally far removed probably unaware that he was already slated to Brecht and Weill 's philosophy that art should from "serious" contemporary dance as he was direct Lawrence Langoer's Arms and the Girl, reach a wider audience, it is a deliberate piece from ''serious" contemporary music. Yet a musical about the American Revolution. of low-brow fun with its bite cloaked in a sar­ dance idioms play a decisive structural and sty­ Nevertheless, he agreed to read the new donic smile .... listic role in many of his most memorable theat­ script and to offer constructive criticism. When For Das Berli11er Requiem the tone is rical works. With the growing awareness of the Mamoulian presented his views at Weill's starker, the irony even more bitter. The work potential of both music and dance to illuminate apartment, Weill "smiled and beam.ed," while is concerned ,vith the First \\brld War, with its climax in the legend of The Unknown Soldier social and political issues, W!ill's future as a Anderson "sat there, poker-faced. like Rodin's Beneath the Tri111111>hal Arch and the murder "baUet composer" may be brighter now than Le fxmseur. " "Finally," Mamoulian recalls, ':,\n­ in 1919 of left wing padfist leader, Rosa Lux­ ever before. European dance theater seems fi­ derson stood up, all six-(oot-twoofhim. (As he emburg, whose decomposed body was dis­ nally to have discovered the rich vein in W!ill's was) walking over to me, I thought he was go­ covered in a Berlin canal. However. I see it musical mine. ing to hit me." Anderson grabbed Mamoulian's

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE7 lapels and said, "\\e cannot do this show with­ To Duncan, Anderson conveyed the impres­ quested a musical soliloquy in which Kumalo out you. We will be wonderful pupils. Just tell us sion that he had written "a protest play;• But could sort his troubled thoughts. Anderson and what you want us to do and we will do it:· The how, the actor wondered, would fist-slamming Weill responded by writing ''O TllCo, TllCo, Help evidently intimidated Mamoulian shook Ander­ and shouting do any good? Duncan and Ma­ Me;' one of the show's most effective mo­ son's hand "like a fool:' agreeing to direct the moulian agreed that an intelligent black man in ments and a showcase for Duncan. In staging show if Weill and Anderson would implement Kumalo 's circumstances would probably recog­ the play, Mamoulian employed a choreographic specific suggestions. nize the futility in lashing out, and react instead treatment of the show's two "Greek" cho­ Langner, producer of the Theatre Guild and with seeming humility and subservience. Even ruses, one white and one black. each of which Mamoulian's friend, urged him to forget the the play's title, according to Duncan, implies a flanked one side of the proscenium. George day he set eyes on Anderson, whom he dis­ reach beyond temporal concerns for ultimate Jenkins· fleXJble set facilitated the "pictorial missed as "thoroughly uncooperative." He truth. ''The message of Lost in the Stars is that groupings" that had won Mamoulian praise predicted that Anderson would be ''unwilling to there's really no room for hatred. Kumalo is since his debut. For the ''Train to Johannes­ change even a comma" of his work, warned of really not capable of wasting his energies on burg'' number, the chorus sat on benches, their financial disaster, but granted that Lost in the such self-destructive emotions," Duncan ob­ bodies bouncing to re.fleet the jolting rhythms Stars seemed "ideologically superior" to and serves. '' M.unoulian guided us away from the of a train ride; at other times they tip-toed, ad­ "more substantial" than most of the prevailing sword's edge to a more artistically rewarding vanced, retreated, and froze in semi-circular Broadway fare. Despite some doubts, Ma­ path. upstage crosses. moulian postponed Anns and the Girl, already "Remember that we carried oo signs in The project deeply involved all who partici­ budgeted and contracted. "If you insist on do­ those days.'' Duncan cautions. "Our scars pated in it, binding authors, actors, technicians, ing Weill and Anderson's play now," said were our signs. Had l allowed myself to be and management into an intensely emotional. Langner, "I'm going to have to pay my people swayed by Anderson, I would have gotten off­ loyal team. Patrons caught the spirit: Ma­ eight week's salary, just waiting for you to be­ track with a character as difficult as Kumalo had moulian noted that many audience members come available.'' ''Then that's what you'll have it not been for Mamoulian's understanding, pa­ wept openly each night. He recalls offering his to do," countered Mamoulian, convinced that tience, and forebearing." house seats to Irving Berlin and his wife. and, Arms should quite properly be relegated sec­ The differing interpretations of Kumalo point after five successive performances, delicately ondary status on his production schedule. to a conflict which was vividly personified in the mentioning that he'd like the seats back. "Why Composer, author, and director shared belief Sixties. Martin Luther King, Jr., reached a don't you and Azadia take in Miss Liberty, right in the play's power. In creating an American broader section of the public through a non-vio­ around the corner?'' Berlin asked. "We can't musical from foreign source material, the au­ lent, unthreatening approach; Malcolm X. lev­ get enough of this show.'' thors sought to dramatize a problem-centered elling charges of "Uncle Tom-ism'' at King, For Mamoulian, the integrity and heart­ novel in a way that would penetrate American took a decidedly un-pacifistic stance and rending emotional intensity of lChicago. Ac­ Company, in which he held charter member­ To lost in the Stars, Mamoulian applied the cording to the original plan, after stops in Los ship (\\eill, admitted in 1946, was the only com­ kind of "show doctoring" expertise that had Angeles and San Francisco, the play was, at poser on the board), to sponsor the play as brought him fame. A Shakespearean scholar Weill's insistence, to re-open on Broadway in their first offering of the 1949-50 season. with Hamlet never far from his mind, he re- October 1950. 'Vleill died 3 April and Lost in the Todd Duncan was chosen to play Kumalo. A Stars did not return to New York. Tellingly, the successful concert singer who had created the tour was made all the more difficult by the im­ role of Gershwin's Porgy, Duncan had also be­ possibility of finding adequate lodgings for the come the first black to sing "non-black" leading cast. roles with a major American opera company Not long after opening night. Weill, Ander­ (the fledgling New York City Opera). Duncan son, and Mamoulian decided to renew their col­ possessed a combination of dramatic and musi­ laboration, this time in a musical version of cal talent and experience unrivalled by any Huckleberry Firm, tentatively entitled Raft on other black actor. the River. Weill wrote only five songs for the Early conviviality among the production play before his death, and the project was aban• staff, Mamoulian recalls, soon dissolved into doned. disputes over nearly every aspect of drama­ Whatever its artistic and commercial short­ turgy and production. The most important con­ comings, l

KORT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGES AROUND THE WORLD Classic or Myth? Weill in Berlin

by Stephen Hinton on the other hand, Weill's music survives ubiq­ two distinct ways. Either the work's creators uitously, its creator forgotten - or never have presented prospective producers, in a Kurt \'kill was a product of that glorious. known ("Was it really Weill who composed positive sense, with a substantial challenge, or unique, never-to-return metropolis Berlin 'Mack the Knife' and 'September Song?'," the work, as such, is beset \vith intrinsic prob­ prior to the Hitler era; indeed he was, in many etc.). For the serious composer, the latter lems, is a flawed conception. Barbara Karp's respects. its incarnation. hooor is partly a dubious one. Though it was production at the Theater des Westens left it - Heinrich Strobel, "Erinnerung atz Kurt Weill himself - when celebrating Schubert's bi­ open which is the case; and J was left ,vith nag­ Weill," 1950 centenary, shortly after the premiere of Die ging doubts about the rifts in the Brecht-Weill Dreigrosclumoper - who defined the phenome­ partnership being partly responsibile for some Towards the end of his obituary, Heinrich non of "melodies having entered the hearts of of the unresolved difficulties - the principal, Strobel (albeit not without a little "Golden the people" as "perhaps the highest thing an oveniding one being the question: what sort of opera is this anti-opera Mahagonny? This may Twenties" nostalgia) declared \J.eill the incar­ artist can achieve." Weill's melodies, like Schu­ for nation of pre-Nazi Berlin. But. nowadays, to bert's, have achieved just that. And so him sound either trivial or sophistic; but there are nominate candidates who could similarly repre­ the union of real popularity with the highest ar~ grounds to believe that Brecht's attack on the "culinarity" of art - whereby the very possi­ sent the Berlin of the 1980s would appear un­ tistic perfection by no means presented an in­ bility of opera as a truly epic fonn (in the Brech­ thinkable. The city is, after all, politicaJJy and tolerable contradiction. It was his artistic culturally divided, with two very distinct program, which he fulfilled in a manner that tian senses) seems precluded - not only halves. And it is more, not less, cosmopolitan was at once individual, urbane and so widely underpins his polemical theory but actually un­ than it was during the Weimar Republic. Who successful that he can be said to symbolize his dermines his conception of Mahagonny, which age, as Strobel suggested. Which is not to say considerably diverged from Weill's. It is not could ever hope to embody such diversity, even with the aid of transfiguring hindsight? that the danger of contradiction does not pre­ simply a question of intent but of what consti­ tutes the precepts and principles of the genre: Under greatly changed circumstances, such a vail. On the contrary, it is an abiding threat and question is surely unfair. It is not so much a hazard. Thus it is, above all, this aspect of the in short, of the difference between singing and case offinding the contemporary equivalents of composer's personal challenge - and its atten­ speaking. U Die Dreigroscherwj)er and Mahagonny (works dant problems - that prompts and infonns the W.H. Auden's observation applies, accord­ Strobel doubtless had uppermost in his mind) following discussion. How, then, is Weill's mu­ ing to which ''every high C accurately struck but of acknowledging that the search is a vain sic being perpetuated in the light of his own al­ demolishes the theory that we are the irre­ most Olympian criteria and standards? sponsible puppets of fate or chance;• then the one. Yet it is only half of the story to describe Weimar Berlin as "unique.'' The adjective ap­ very notion of opera is at loggerheads with That Weill's criteria were not necessarily Brecht's central idea behind both the plot of plies equally to Weill himself, whose memory Brecht's is a fact that can - and should - caJJ and works, on both sides of the Berlin wall, are Mahagonny and the theory of epic theater, still very much alive, especially in 1985, the into question the mythical formula "Brecht­ namely to demonstrate that we are puppets Weill." The implied unity of purpose is fictitious, and prisoners of comipt social forces. Either 85th anniversary of his birth. There were four no more so than for the opera Aufsti,eg und Fall major Weill productions in all, two on each side. Jimmy Mahoney sings himself out of the plot, der Stadt Mahagonny. It is generally held that or the plot demolishes his music. It can go ei­ In the West, a new production of Au[stieg utul this is, by any standards, a difficult work - a ther way, depending on the production. At the Fall der Stadt Mahagonny was launched on 28 judgment that can, however, be understood in April at the Theater des Westens; at the same Theater des Westens, it went very much in theater a Kurt-l¾ill-Revue received its pre­ rniere on 10 April. In the East, the Berliner En­ semble had its own revue, a Kurt Weill Abend which opened on 19 January, and the sam~ troupe continued to give performances of what must inevitably be an essential work in its rep­ ertoire: Die Dreigroschenoper, this particular production having had its prerniere on 2 Octo­ ber 1981. The music has outlived the milieu it originally symbolized so gloriously. That much is obvious from the works· continued presence. But the process of transcendence has occurred in two very different ways. And that presents prob­ lems. Kurt We.ill can now be - and is - re­ garded as a composer of classic stature. At the same time, however, his popularity has turned him into a myth; and both of these aspects taken together - Weill as classic as well as myth - can appe.ar mutually exclusive. As a classic, he commands the respect of serious musicians; his works have acquired an absolute quality; and the scores deserve the punctilious attention of the philologist, from producers, Nicole Heesters, "The Girl of the Moment,'' revels with Eric Lee Johnson in the conductors, and perfonners alike. As a myth, Theater des Westens' Kurt-Weill-Revue.

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE9 Brecht's - the librettist's - favor, not least because of the added part of a Conferencier, played by Gunter Bothur, who for the most part dressed up - with black leather jacket, matching flat cap. and cigar - as Brecht him­ self; when. that is, he was not administering a further "alienation effect" by invading the stage·and action - this time with bagJ?V trou­ sers. bowler hat, and cane - as Charlie Cha­ plin. Mahagonny thus became. as it were. Brecht 's answer to The Gold Rush. Moreover, 'A~ill's florid arrangement of "The Maiden's Prayer" in Act I served here to accompany the showing of a short remake (expressly for this production) of the boot-eating scene from that film. All this betrays Barbara Karp as a purveyor of director's theater. Yet it would be wrong to maintain that she had one overall con­ cept to impose on the work. She had several. The Brecht-Chaplin interpolations (apart from being supplemented by the floating globe scene from The GrMt Dictator) were thus comple­ mented and overlapped by the clumsily realized notion of Mahagonny as an updated medieval mystery play, with Jimmy even being given a life-size cross to bear and drag across the stage and certain quotations from the Old Testament in large gothic letters being lowered into view as epigraphs for each scene. The director's mind on display in all this Jimmy Mahoney (James Brookes) stands trial in Barbara Karp's staging of Auf­ seemed as cluttered as the stage was with ex­ stieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at the Theater des Westens . (Stage design traneous bits of property. And while such a per­ by Allen Charles Kle in) rn1ss1ve, eclectic, and wide-ranging sionalism. Anything less evokes the operatic has a voice quality that is neither overtly oper­ interpretation would probably fit the bill in the parody that Mahagonny can easily tum into. atic nor artlessly popular but somewhere in be­ context of an undergraduate essay on the This is the uncompromising truth of Weill's tween. uses that instrument with the work, this kind of fertile thinking does not challenge at its most extreme. intelligence of a born actor; and, what is more, make for satisfying theater. Such ingenuity has If these shortcomings thereby offer a nega­ he can dance. Although an American, his pre­ its price, which in this case was a loss of pur­ tive demonstration of the demands made by ferred country of residence is Germany; yet pose and definition. The music was not so W!ill's music theater, then the Kurt-Weill-Re­ Broadway would surely welcome him with much an obedient daughter, as a very distant uue, also at the Theater des Westens, on the open arms. He and Miss Heesters were sup­ relative, rendered perhaps more insignificant whole furnished evidence of a more positive ported by a superb ensemble. F. Dion Davis than even Brecht could have wished, let alone kind. To judge by the audience reaction, the and Eric Lee Johnson deserve special mention Weill. The tendency to crowd the stage with evening proved an unqualified success. But this for their remarkable combinations of singing people and property while retaining the same was not because producer Helmut Baumann and dancing ability. The choreographer was basic backdrop, and thus realizing the intended had merely strung together a se.lection of Jurg Burth. random impression of a marketplace, blurred \¾!ill's greatest hits. Some of the hits were to The first part - "Berlin" - contained five the overall ''stringing together of situations" be heard, of course. They were, however, in­ songs from Happy End (some of Weill's finest, which, as Weill maintained, "facilitates a struc­ tegrated into a simple and very effective tripar­ albeit written for a slight piece of theater), oth­ turing according to purely musical laws." This tite structure: Berlin-Paris-New York. It was ers from Silbersee, the Berliner Requiem, and shortcoming was only compounded by the in­ an impressive reminder that if one is to speak Mahagonny (both opera and "Songspiel"). The sensitive approach of the conductor, Peter of Weill in the plural, the three \Veills seem finale to this part took the form of a short ballet Keuschnig. Not only did he favor very fast more appropriate than two. As Teresa Stratas' to the music of Kleine Dreigroschenrm~ik, the tempi, which in the course of each number got "Unknown Weill" revealed, Weill adapted him­ Deutsche Oper lending support here with even faster, but he seemed to conceive of the self to his Parisian surroundings of the mid- members of its corps de ballet. The scenario music as being constructed in accord with the 1930s by effortlessly adopting a distinctly seemed, on one level. to mirror the plot of the neo-baroque ideal of a unified basic pulse, the French idiom. And some of the theater songs in original opera; on another, it introduced a futur­ Stravinskian and Hindernithian motor rhythm this idiom were included in the second part of istic element: large two-dimensional shapes or "sewing machine" effect. This is to over­ the revue. which looked as though they bad been lifted look completely the essential classicism of While the rest of the ensemble sat still in this from a painting by Paul Klee and which were \¾!ill's periodic design. which is often thor­ part, waiting around like destitute and forlorn eventually mutilated as a tall, blond, Teutonic oughly Schubertian. refugees, the two stars of the show - Nicole man in a leather trenchcoat brought the per­ Up against such odds - the work's inherent Heesters and Steve Barton - came into their formance to a close with a Nazi salute. A vul­ opposition to singing protagonists and this pro­ own. As a singer, Miss Heesters knows how to gar, cliche gesture, perhaps; yet one that duction's corroboration of Brecht's destructive tum her limitations into her strengths; she is a clearly fitted into the immediate context of non­ tendencies - the lead roles had an extremely first-rate diseuse, an actress with a wealth of figurative, "degenerate" art being censured; hard time of it. Besides, nothing but complete presence and slightly sleazy sensuality, persua­ and it fitted, too. into the broader context of accuracy, confidence, and conviction will do. Of sive delivery, absolute clarity of diction, and a the conclusion of the Berlin section, as an up­ the cast, only James Brookes (who alternated voice that was nurtured more on cigarettes beat to the melancholic scene of desolation in with Hermin Esser) as Jimmy Mahoney gave a than scales and arpeggios. Her counterpart, Part Two. performance that was not surreal for the wrong Steve Barton, embraces with rare exuberance Part Three also had a story to relate. By jux­ reasons. For, if the work is to succeed. it must all the qualities ideally required by an actor­ taposing songs mainly from Lady in the Dark. be cast with charismatic acting-singers, and all singer \vishing to perform Wlill: he is at home Baumann and Burth had constructed a minia­ concerned must display this standard of profes- delivering German, French, and English texts, ture musical on the female American dream of

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE 10 beeoming W>man of the Year, or, as the song question of writing music that can be sung by ing a managerial decision to take off an updated title has it, "Girl of the Moment." Irony and actors, that is . musical amateurs." This is cer­ version of the work which was being prepared satire were never far away; and the culmination tainly true for Die DreigroscheWJf>er but not for under the direction of Dario Fo. In itself, the was an outsize double of Ronald Reagan offici­ Das Berliner Requ.iem, for example, part of thinking behind the decision can scarcely be ating before an under-sized replica of the White which was included in the program. The latter condoned, the danger being to turn such insti­ House. This kind of reworking could easily music requires professional singers, as the En­ tutionalized theater into a sterile museum. In have jarred, if not offended. Yet the whole was semble's performers seemed to sense by re­ this particular case, however, the basic princi­ executed with such precision and obvious plea­ acting to their inadequate, out-of-tune delivery ple did not apply, and caution and conservatism sure, and the score was such a feast of glorious with self-parody - something they also did at ended up serving the work very well indeed. sonorities and invention (Peter Keuschnig's di­ the beginning of the Mahag1mny Songspiel. And After all of the abominable distortions that un­ rection benefitting here from the discipline of by quoting a passage from Adomo's rev.iew of avoidably accompany the process of populariza­ the dancers, perhaps), that any reservations the opera Mahagon11J, expressed as that analy­ tion, it is both welcome and refreshing to have paled before the impact of the spect.acle. This sis is in the author's characteristically arcane the Dreigroschenoper performed according to part of the revue may also be seen as experi­ prose style. the Conferencier only elicited fur­ the Urtext - the music as weU, apart from mental preparation for this house's plan to ther mirth from the audience, who were clearly some disturbingly fast tempi - and also to have st.age full-length American musicals. On this under the impression that this was a parody, the set designers going back to Caspar Neher's showing, expectations of success deserve to too. (Nor did it seem at all fair to the struggling originals for inspiration. be high. singers that the star of the show, Gisela May, Butone was not left with the feeling of having The Berliner Ensemble's Kurt Weill Abend was undemocratically "miked up!') apprehended a museum piece. The freshness bore the subtitle "From Schiffuauerdamm to and wit of the acting prevented that from hap­ Broadway" and was superficially more bio­ At one point, an intentional joke was intro­ pening, most notably Corinna Harfouch, who graphical than the Theater des Westens revue. duced. "Must everything always be explained played Polly. She managed superbly to person­ The Theater am Schiftbauerdamm, where Die in this house?" one of the actors asked the ify the ambiguity of her role: the mix of the Dreigroschenoj>erreceived its premiere in 1928, Conferencier unmistakably aUuding to Brech­ young girl's romantic yearning and her innate is now the Ensemble's own home and thus tian didacticism, among other things. "Yes, it resilience (so typical of Brecht's women) in the where this revue was st.aged. However. the must;' was the curt answer. But it needed far face of a world that is decidedly unromantic. subtitle - though pinpointing as it were the more than this kind of ironic and resigned self­ She also negotiated the potentially hazardous two spiritual centers of Weill's musk theater as criticism to do justice to Brecht's much misrep­ melodrama of, for instance, the prison scenes weU as drawing attention to connection with resented collaborator. Some of the cobwebs of with exemplary skill. Anything Miss Harfouch the Ensemble's present location - is, strictly slipshod routine and habit were frankly ac­ does would, I'm sure, be epic enough for speaking, inaccurate. Directed by Jocheo Ziller knowledged and exposed, it is true, though Brecht. Both Christine Gloger (as a shrewd with "dramaturgical assistance" from Jurgen they should really have been blown away alto­ and worldly Jenny) and Renate Richter (a deli­ Schebera, the show was arranged as a more or gether. ciously raunchy Frau Peachum) give fine dis­ less chronological review ofWeill's career, pre­ It was therefore with great relief that on re­ plays of the singer-actor's craft. Their example sided over by a Conferencier (Peter Tepper), turning to Schiffbauerdamrn for the Ensemble's should be followed. For it is in performances who suppled the connecting narrative between Dreigroscl1enof>er l found the house - as it pat­ and productions like this, which properly re­ the various numbers. Over half of these were ently should be with such a work - in wonder­ spect Die Dreigroschetzoper as a classic, that the taken, not surprisingly, from the collaborations ful order. This coUective production originally chance lies to eliminate the more undesirable with Brecht - the Ensemble's natural bias appeared as a last-minute replacement, foUow- facets of the Brecht-Weill myth. and, presumably strength. The narrative, consisting mainly of press cuttings, in fact began in 1923. Not Schiffbauer­ J{1.tm1ner 15 damm and Dreigroschenoper, then, but String Quartet No. 1 and Frauentanz. The intention was undoubtedly honorable: to shed light on the little-known ''serious;• "avant-garde" side KAMFFEN of Weill's output, thereby bringing the above­ mentioned plural to four. The result, however, was disastrous. If the String Quartet is so­ called "serious" art music, which it is, then it deserves to be treated as such. An extract of "guess-what-this-is" length, which is what we got, may be enough to show offWeill's facility in the medium and persuade the uninitiated of his ''modernist" credentials. But its appearance as part of such an anthology suggests that the var­ ious Weills can happily coexist alongside one an­ other in a common aesthetic context. This is a fundamental error. A work of chamber music quite simply belongs in a chamber music con­ cert. not in a variety show. It demands to be heard as a constructed whole, rather than hav­ ing sections extracted to form a part of a med­ ley of highlights. Plays with music obviously come off better when subjected to such treat­ I' ment. There are different aesthetic principles at work: the composer caters for different groups of listeners and modes of listening. just ~ as be envisages different types of performers. The Berliner Ensemble also ignored this sec­ ond distinction and thus completely misunder­ stood the quotation from Weill printed on the ~t first page of the program booklet: "It was a

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE 11 FROM THE ARCHIVES Recent Acquisitions

Annelies von Molnar, nee Jolowiecz (center), as Jenny with othe r members of the cast ofM a hagormy, Kassel, 1930. matic cantata (written in 1940 to a libretto Broadcasters, the Foundation received cop- by Maxwell Anderson), recently found in ies of broadcast tapes from the Siidwest- by David Farneth their warehouse. Also found were a copy- funk , Hessischer Rundfunk , and ist's manuscript of the vocal score and nega- Siiddeutscher Rundfunk Stuttgart. Tape tive copies of the orchestral materials. copies were also donated from the private During the past year, the collections of the collections of Alan Rich and Kim Kowalke. Weill/Lenya Research Center have increased 4.Der ]asager. American composer Ned With the generous assistance of Victor Sy­ significantly through purchases and donations. Rorem recently contributed memorabilia monette, the Foundation has purchased We have added 130 books, 33 commercial re• from a production of Der ]asager at the Uni­ from Radio France a copy of La Grande versity of Buffalo in 1960. Mr. Rorem used cordings, 41 non-commercial recordings, and Complainte de Fantomas, a modem adapta­ his own English translation, directed the many articles, programs, posters, and photo­ tion of the ballad originally written in 1933. graphs. Although space limitations preclude performance and conducted from the piano. listing every donor and donation, the following Copies of correspondence with Lenya, a ll. The Institute ofth e American Musical. Cop­ list describes some of the highlights of recent program, recording, and score (with Mr. ies of all materials related to Kurt Weill in the acquisitions. Rorem's translation) were among the mate­ collections of U1e Institute of the America.n rials donated. Musical have been donated to the Founda­ tion. Included are tapes of early recordings l.Ofrah 's Lieder. On 9 May, the Library of 5.Mahagonny, Kassel, 1930. Annelies von of Die Dreigroschenoper and Mahagonny, Congress purchased at auction from Sothe­ Molnar, who portrayed Jenny in a produc­ tapes of popular arrangements of songs by's London ~ill's autograph of Ofrah's tion of Aujstieg und Fall der Stadt Maha­ from the American works, and photocopies lieder. A photocopy is available for study at gonny in Kassel, Germany, in 1930, paid a of scripts, programs, sheet music, and artic­ the Foundation. This manuscript repre­ welcome visit to the Foundation to partici­ les. Photocopies of materials were also ob­ sents the only complete extant version of a pate in the Oral History Program and to do­ tained from the Academy of Motion Picture setting of five poems by the medieval He­ nate photos, programs, press clippings, and Arts-and Sciences and the American Film In­ brew poet Jehuda Halevi. The songs, for correspondence from the production. stitute. voice and piano, are notated on 12 pages in blue ink; there are four systems per page, 6. Correspondence. Eric Bentley, Ted MitcheU. 12. Vuleotapes. The Foundation has obtained vi­ and Felix Jackson donated photocopies of deotapes of the 1984 production of Aufstieg each comprised of three staves. The cover their correspondence from Lotte Lenya. bears the inscription: "Ofrah's Lieder. Ein und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at the The­ Liederzyklus nach Gedichten des Jehuda ater am Gartnerplatz, Munich; a 1985 recital 7.Photographs. Valuable early photographs Halevi von Kurt Julian Weill September by soprano Joy Bogen in New York's Merkin 1916." The manuscript had once belonged to from archives in the German Democratic Concert Hall; The Seven Deadly Sins in a Emilie Feuge, a singer who premiered Republic have been sent by Dr. Jurgen 1983 production by Kenneth MacMillan for Schebera; Ted Mitchell has donated many of many of Weill's early songs from 1918-1920. Granada Television; a 1979 production of his candid portraits of Lenya. Mahagonny Songspiel for Schweizer Fem­ 2.Peter Bing Materials. The Foundation re­ sehen; Stratasphere, a Canadian documen­ cently concluded negotiation for the pur­ 8.BOST Records. Paul Young has donated a tary featuring soprano Teresa Stratas' chase of Weill manuscripts which were held copy of the 1943 BOST recording of si.x discussions of~'s music and her relation­ by the estate of Peter Bing, son of Weill's songs by Weill, sung by Lenya with Weill on ship with Lenya; and Paul Salsini has con­ teacher, Albert Bing. Most important in the piano. This is the Foundation's only copy of tributed tapes with a variety of material, collection are the complete sketches to Der this recording. including an interview with Lenya (including Protagonist (53 pages), repr?!senting the 9.0ral History. Interviews with Dr. Marta excerpts from a British television special di­ most complete extant sketches for any of Feuchtwanger, Margot Aufricbt, Felix Jack­ rected by Ken RusseU) , an appearance by Weill's stage works. Also acquired were son, Robert Vambery, Maurice Abravanel, Martha Schlamme and Alvin Epstein on the four letters, six postcards, a list of publisher Annelies von Molnar, Herbert Borchardt, Dick Cavett program, Ginger Rogers' film complaints, and one printed announcement. Norbert Gingold, and Andreas Meyer­ of Lady in the Dark as well as numbers from 3.Ballad of Magna Carta. The Rodgers & Hanno were added to the collection. that show performed by Lynn Redgrave, Hammerstein Music Library donated ?kill's 10. Tapes. In an exchange program arranged by Danny Kaye, Julie Andrews, and Diahann piano-vocal score manuscript of the dra- David Berger of the Association of German Carroll.

KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE 12