Volume 23 Number 2 topical Weill Fall 2005 A supplement to the Kurt Weill Newsletter news &news events The countdown continues . for the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera at Studio 54, with previews beginning 24 March 2006 and the official opening night on 20 April. Scott Elliott directs a high-voltage cast, including Alan Cumming, who starred as the M.C. in the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret, as Macheath; Edie Falco, leading lady of the television series The Sopranos, as Jenny; and 21-year- old singer/songwriter Nellie McKay as Polly. The most recent addition to the cast is veteran stage and screen actor Jim Dale as Mr. Peachum. The production features a new translation by Wallace Shawn and musical direction by Kevin Stites. Threepenny’s Cumming, Falco, and McKay. Successful stagings of Die Dreigroschenoper return to the Maxim Upcoming Concert Highlights Gorki Theater in Berlin (from 1 October) and Hamburg's St. Pauli Theater (28 December–15 January 2006). The work is hard Created thirty-six years ago by Weill’s musical collaborator to miss during the 2005–2006 season, with productions in Maurice Levine, the Lyrics and Lyricists series at New Stuttgart, Bonn, Leipzig, Hannover, Münster, Memmingen, York's 92nd Street Y departs from its usual format this Coburg, Potsdam, Ingolstadt, Hof, Kiel, Rudolstadt, Bad November with Kurt Weill in America, celebrating Weill as Hersfeld, Bautzen, Kassel, and Ravensburg, as well as Innsbruck, composer along with his lyricists. Andrea Marcovicci hosts Austria. Another omnipresent Weill/Brecht work, Aufstieg und a program with seven other cabaret artists (five perfor- Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, can be seen in Madrid, Basel, Dresden, mances, 12–14 November). Following the seven-week San Berlin, Saarbrücken, Ulm, and Dessau. Francisco run of her Here Lies Jenny Weill revue, on 19 After its highly acclaimed July run at Italy’s Ravenna Festival, November Bebe Neuwirth begins a U.S. orchestra tour this fall Opera North’s production of One Touch of Venus takes up singing Weill songs; 2005–2006 season performances take residence on the Sadler’s Wells stage in London (3–12 her to Buffalo, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Key Largo, Tampa November). Conductor James Holmes continues his Weill series Bay, Providence, Las Vegas, Green Bay, and Waterbury, at Opera North with a spring 2006 British tour of Arms and the Connecticut. Cow (Der Kuhhandel ), directed by David Pountney: Bradford Weill’s Symphony No. 2 can be heard in performances by (30 March–1 April), Nottingham (27 April), Norwich (6 May), the New Haifa Symphony Orchestra with conductor Ori Salford Quays (13 May), Newcastle (18 May), Hull (24 May), and Leshman (29–31 October), the Scottish Chamber Sheffield (3 June). Orchestra under André de Ridder (4 November, Glasgow; 5 November, Edinburgh), Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen with Lenya Sings Weill on DVD Michael Sanderling (24 November), Victoria Symphony with Yannick Nézet-Séguin (29 and 30 January 2006), and The 29 June 1958 broadcast of Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur with Petri Sakari the CBS television series (1–2 February). HK Gruber leads the Svenska Camera Three, hosted by James Kammarorkestern Örebro in Symphony No. 2 and Öl- Macandrew, featured Lotte Musik on 17 November. Upcoming concert performances of Lenya singing songs by Weill. Die sieben Todsünden are scheduled by the Münchner This historic broadcast is now Rundfunkorchester under Lawrence Foster (with Mísia as available on DVD. Video Artists Anna I, 16 October), the Florida Orchestra under Stefan International’s Lotte Lenya and Sanderling (Lisa Vroman and The Hudson Shad, 22–24 Gisela May: Theater Music of October), Nederlands Kamerorkest conducted by Yakov Brecht and Weill packages togeth- Kreizberg (Noemi Nadelmann, 19 November), the er the Camera Three broadcast Duisburger Philharmoniker under Lawrence Foster (Heidi along with footage from two other Weill interpreters: Gisela Brunner, 15–16 March 2006), and Orchestra del Teatro May in a 1972 television broadcast and Martha Schlamme in Comunale di Bologna conducted by Carlo Rizzi (Ute songs filmed in 1963 (with Will Holt) and 1970. Lemper, 7 April). 2a Volume 23, Number 2 Topical Weill Kurt Weill Foundation Programs 2006 Lotte Lenya Competition for Singers 2005 Kurt Weill Prize Awarded to Andrea Most Applications must be received by 16 January 2006 Andrea Most of the University of Toronto for the ninth annual Lenya Competition. Artists has been awarded the 2005 Kurt Weill Prize born after 31 December 1973 and before 1 January for her book, Making Americans: Jews and the 1987 are eligible to apply, and regional auditions Broadway Musical (Harvard University will be held at the University of Rochester's Press, 2004). In an examination of Broadway Eastman School of Music (4 February 2006), the theater in the period 1925 to 1951, from The Lyric Opera of Chicago (15 February), Boston Jazz Singer to The King and I, Most main- University (25 February) and Dicapo Opera tains that the process of Jewish acculturation Theater, New York City (3 and 4 March). Each in America and the development of the regional contestant will be asked to prepare two Broadway musical are inextricably joined. contrasting theatrical selections by Kurt Weill, Most receives an award of $2500. Also sin- plus two non-Weill selections—an opera/operetta gled out by the prize panel for honorable aria and a selection chosen from the American mention in the book category was Bill Egan, musical theater repertoire. All selections must be for his book Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz performed in their original language. Contestants Queen (Scarecrow Press, 2004), a biography of a remarkable African- who are unable to attend any of the regional audi- American entertainer of the 1920s. The panel did not award a prize in the arti- tions may instead submit a good-quality videotape cle category. of all four selections. Finalists will be selected from the regional auditions to participate in the The Kurt Weill Prize is awarded biennially for dis- competition finals, to be held on 22 April 2006 at tinguished scholarship on twentieth-century musi- the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. cal theater. The four-member selection panel con- Regional winners will each receive an award of sists of representatives from the Modern Language $500, plus a $500 stipend to pay for travel to the Association, the American Musicological Society, finals in Rochester. The finals judges will award the American Society for Theatre Research, and the prizes of $7500, $5000, and $3000, and winners Kurt Weill Foundation for Music. Scholarly work will also be presented in a concert in New York first published in 2005 and 2006 may be nominated City on 18 May 2006. for the 2007 book and article prizes. Nominations, including five copies of the nominated work and Past Lenya Competition Winners Attain Success contact information for the author, must be received by 30 April 2007 at the offices of the Kurt Weill The 2005 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World is Foundation for Music, 7 East 20th Street, New Nicole Cabell, a member of the Chicago Lyric York, NY 10003. Opera Center for American Artists and a special award winner in the 2002 Lenya Competition. news &news events Peter McGillivray, who won Second Prize in 2001, In an interview with Willamette Week’s Steffen Siflis, Anne Jeffreys recounted has won the Second Prize in the 2005 Montreal how she came to play Rose in the premiere of Street Scene: International Singing Competition. A member of the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera “I was performing Tosca at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. After a perfor- Company, McGillivray also recently won the mance, there were two men waiting outside my dressing room. One was a tall Bernard Diamant Prize from the Canada Council man with big glasses [Maurice Abravanel], and for the Arts. Raquela Sheeran, Second the other was a small man with big glasses. Prizewinner in the 2001 Lenya Competition, was They introduced themselves, and, of course, praised by the critics for her performance as the smaller man turned out to be Kurt Weill. Clorinda in Rossini's Cenerentola at the 2005 They came in, and Kurt said that he wanted me Glyndebourne Festival. to play one of the leads in his new show. I told him that I was under contract at RKO in Mid-Year Professional Performance Grants Hollywood, and that I had to get back to the studio. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘would you just come Upon the recommendation of the independent and listen to the music?’ Now, who can say no to grant review panel, the Board of Trustees of the Kurt Weill? So I went along to the Adelphi Kurt Weill Foundation has awarded two Mid-Year Theater and went into this cold office, and Anne Jeffreys in 2005 Professional Performance grants for 2005. there was Kurt at a piano, and he started play- Winners were the Singapore Lyric Opera, for two ing the score and singing in his squeaky little voice, and I was thrilled. It was concerts of Street Scenes, and the Florida the loveliest music. He said, ‘Would you play Rose?’ and I said, ‘Let me call Orchestra, for The Seven Deadly Sins in concert. Hollywood.’” Topical Weill Volume 23, Number 2 3a Critics Celebrate New Weill Recording news &news events Symphony no. 1, Symphony no. 2, Symphonic Nocturne from Lady in the Dark, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor. Naxos 8.557481 “Although Kurt Weill turned his talents more prolifically to works for the stage, the two surviving symphonies, completed in 1921 and 1934 respectively, show that he could pack a powerful punch in abstract music as well. Anyone familiar with the style of The Threepenny Opera or Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny will recognize the same Weill in the symphonies, particularly the Second.