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Speak Low: a Kurt Weill Cabaret

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Speak Low: a Kurt Weill Cabaret Season Design Sponsor 2009–2010 MAINSTAGE PERFORMANCES SPEAK LOW: A KURT WEILL CABARET October 19-20, 2012 Cohen Family Studio Theater Funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York, NY CCM DIVISION OF OPERA, MUSICAL THEATRE, DRAMA, ARTS ADMINISTRATION AND THEATRE DESIGN & PRODUCTION PRESENTS SPEAK LOW: A KURT WEILL CABARET Music Director Lydia Brown Director Robin Guarino Dramaturge bruce mcclung Cohen Family Studio Theater October 19-20, 2012 The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. administers, promotes, and perpetuates the legacies of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. It encourages broad dissemination and appreciation of Weill’s music through support of performances, productions, recordings, and scholarship; it fosters understanding of Weill’s and Lenya’s lives and work within diverse cultural contexts; and, building upon the legacies of both, it nurtures talent, particularly in the creation, performance, and study of musical theater in its various manifestations and media. www.kwf.org CCM is an accredited institution of the National Association of Schools of Music and the National Association of Schools of Theatre and a member of the University/ Resident Theatre Association. The videotaping or other video or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibited. NOTES PIANISTS PROGRAM NOTES PIANISTS Tonight’s cabaret explores the personal and professional collaboration of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. They made an odd couple: he, the well-educated son of a German cantor, and she, the abused daughter of an Austrian Catholic LYDIA BROWN, Pianist + Artist-in-Residence has performed extensively as coachman. When they met in 1924, Weill had recently established himself as a a soloist and collaborative pianist throughout the world. A graduate of the leading modernist composer of the Weimar Republic, while Lenya had escaped Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she currently a life of poverty by becoming a young prostitute, and subsequently a dancer serves as assistant conductor at The Metropolitan Opera. Miss Brown won the and actress. In Berlin Lenya’s employer had asked her to row across the lake to Second Prize of the 1996 New Orleans International Piano Competition and was pick up a weekend visitor, a composer. According to Lenya’s fanciful retelling, honored as an NFAA Presidential Scholar in the Arts. Recital appearances include Weill lost his eyeglasses overboard in a moment of unbridled passion and by the notable venues such as the San Francisco Opera, the Salle Cortot, the Theatre time they had reached the other side of the lake he had asked her to marry him. des Champs-Elysees, the Dusseldorf Insel Festival, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd St. Truth be told, they soon moved in together and did not marry in 1926, in a civil Y, Caramoor, the Goethe Institute of New York, the Phillips Gallery and Steinway ceremony with neither rabbi nor priest present. Hall, among others. Miss Brown has performed at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Weill Recital Hall. Miss With her performance of the “Alabama Song” in Weill’s and Bertolt Brecht’s Brown holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Collaborative Piano from The Mahagonny-Songspiel in 1927, Lenya became associated with her husband’s Juilliard School as well as degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Yale music and the playwright’s theories of epic theater, even though she was University. She has served on the musical coaching staffs of the Spoleto Festival unable to read music and had been deprived a high school education. The USA, Opera Cleveland, Chautauqua and the Ravinia Steans Institute. She heads following year Berlin’s most powerful critic wrote of her performance as Jenny the Institute Voice Program at the Marlboro Music Festival. She studied art song in Die Dreigroschenoper: “There was one among those girls—she was good. with Elly Ameling and pianist Rudolf Jansen. Miss Brown appears courtesy of the She was more than good. Watch her. She will be very soon in the front row.” Metropolitan Opera. That prediction came true with her starring role in G. W. Pabst’s film of Die Dreigroschenoper, spreading Lenya’s image and her mesmerizing stage presence throughout Germany, in addition to her recording of Weill’s songs. They soon VALERIE POOL, Pianist is currently enrolled in the Artist Diploma in Opera became a creative entity: he composing music for her voice, and she giving voice Coaching program at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She recently to his music. completed her Master’s Degree in Collaborative Piano at the University of Despite such creative symbiosis, Weill and Lenya’s relationship was an open Georgia, and was a staff accompanist at Kennesaw State University, where she one with many extracurricular romantic and sexual relationships. They joked previously received her Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Performance. about “meaningless flings,” but her relationship with an Italian tenor spelled Valerie has participated in the collaborative piano programs at SongFest at trouble. Weill and Lenya separated in 1932 and divorced in 1933, the year that Pepperdine, the International Performing Arts Institute (Germany), Interlochen the Nazis came to power and Weill fled his homeland. Two years later in Paris Center for the Arts, the Asolo Song Festival (Italy), the American Institute of they reunited and sailed for the United States. In 1937 they remarried and Musical Studies in Graz (Austria), and Brevard Music Center. This past spring, together applied for U.S. citizenship. Weill enjoyed success on Broadway during she was the pianist and music director for the Nashville Opera Mary Ragland the 1940s with such musicals as Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus, and Young Artist Program, and in 2010, she was the pianist and music director for the the American opera Street Scene, while Lenya’s career as an actress faltered. Atlanta Opera Studio Tour, the educational outreach part of the company. She is Only after Weill’s death in 1950 did Lenya blossom in her role as the foremost an active freelance performer and enjoys working with a wide range of singers and interpreter of his German works. In 1954 she reprised her role as Jenny in The musicians. Threepenny Opera, which played off-Broadway for 2,611 performances and initiated the Weill renaissance. —bruce mcclung bruce mcclung, a member of CCM’s musicology faculty, is author of Lady in the Dark: Biography of a Musical, which won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. CAST COMPANY CAST PROFILES CAST MERYL GELLMAN Meryl Gellman Second-year graduate student from Buffalo, NY Conor McDonald At CCM: Mrs. Fiorentino in Street Scene (upcoming). Edward Nelson Elsewhere: Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi (Hawaii Performing Arts Festival), Le Feu Reilly Nelson in L’Enfant et les Sortilegès (Crane School of Music). Megan Ann Slack CONOR MCDONALD First-year graduate student from Minneapolis, MN PIANISTS At CCM: Howie in Champion; Papageno in Die Zauberflöte (both upcoming). Lydia Brown Elsewhere: Sid in Albert Herring, Papageno in The Magic Flute (Northwestern Valerie Pool University), Carl-Magnus in A Little Night Music (Castleton Festival). JAZZ ENSEMBLE EDWARD NELSON Josh Kline – saxophone, clarinet Second-year graduate student from Valencia, CA Erich Lechliter – trumpet At CCM: Dandini in La Cenerentola, Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen, Betto Kelly Alexander – bass in Gianni Schicchi, John Styx in Orpheus in the Underworld. Josh Reidy – drums Elsewhere: Mr. Gobineau in The Medium at Central City Opera, Pastore III in L’Orfeo at California State University Long Beach. REILLY NELSON Second-year graduate student from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada At CCM: Chorus (Don Giovanni/The Rakes Progress) Elsewhere: Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro at Janiec Opera Company (Brevard, NC). MEGAN ANN SLACK First-year graduate student from Atlanta, GA At CCM: Soprano in Champion (Opera Fusion:New Works) Elsewhere: Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at Opera in the Ozarks (Inspiration Point, Arkansas), Miss Jessel in Turn of the Screw at Oberlin Conservatory (Oberlin, Ohio), Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro with Janiec Opera Company (Brevard, NC), Elisetta in Il Matrimonio Segreto at Oberlin in Italy (Arezzo, Italy), Diana in A Wedding at Oberlin Conservatory (Oberlin, OH), Lola in Gallantry at Oberlin Conservatory (Oberlin, OH), Lady MacBeth in Lady MacBeth at Oberlin Conservatory (Oberlin, OH), Narrator in Sweet Betsy from Pike at Oberlin Conservatory (Oberlin, OH). from One Touch of Venus Lyrics by Ogden Nash PROGRAM Stranger here myself (Reilly Nelson) PROGRAM All music by Kurt Weill (1900-1950) from Lady in the Dark Lyrics by Ira Gershwin Tchaikovsky (Conor McDonald) from Threepenny Opera Der Mensch lebt durch den Kopf (instrumental) from American War Effort Lyrics by Walter Mehring Wie Lange noch (Meryl Gellman) from Lady in the Dark Lyrics by Ira Gershwin Girl of the Moment (Ensemble) from Lost in the Stars Lyrics by Maxwell Anderson Lost in the Stars (Conor McDonald) from One Touch of Venus Lyrics by Ogden Nash That’s Him (Meryl Gellman) from Lady in the Dark Lyrics by Ira Gershwin Girl of the Moment [reprise] (Ensemble) from Johnny Johnson Book and Lyrics by Paul Green Johnny’s Song (Edward Nelson) Youkali: Tango Habanera Lyrics by Roger Fernay (Meryl Gellman + Megan Slack) from Love Life Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner from Knickerbocker Holiday Lyrics by Maxwell Anderson Economics (Ensemble) September Song (Edward Nelson) from One Touch of Venus Lyrics by Ogden Nash Speak Low (Reilly Nelson) from Happy End Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht Bilbao Song (Megan Slack) DIRECTOR’S NOTE from Happy End Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht Matrosen Tango (Conor McDonald) I am indebted to the Kurt Weill Foundation For Music for their inspiration and support. Source materials for this cabaret are derived from Speak Low from Happy End Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht (When You Speak Love): The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited Surabaya Johnny (Megan Slack) and translated by Lys Symonette and Kim K.
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