Today is the birthday of
Lotte Lenya who was born on October 18 in 1898, 120 years ago. She was an
Austrian singer,
diseuse, and actress, who was based in the United States after the rise of
National Socialism in
Germany, when left-leaning artists were not in favor and although not Jewish, she left the country.
In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband,
Kurt Weill (
link below), and in particular,
The Threepenny Opera. There have been dozens of singers with far better voices than hers to interpret his music:
Martha Schlamme in the fifties and sixties,
Anne Sofie von Otter and
Teresa Stratas in the seventies and eighties and currently
Diana Krall. All of them with incredibly beautiful voices that elevated his music to the concert hall.
photographer unknown
For me,
The Threepenny Opera belongs to
Lotte Lenya
and it always will; I will always think of her as Jenny. No one has
ever matched the pathos and desperation of the character as she did. Her
voice kept it in the alleys and slums of the world where it was born
and where it shines brightest.
This recordiing of
The Threepenny Opera has English adaptation of book & lyrics by
Marc Blitzstein and was released in 1954 but I did not discover it until the
late fifties when I was in college. I fell in love with it and through
my discovery of it, I found the world of
Lotte Lenya &
Kurt Weill (
links below).
The Three Penny Opera is a "
play with music" by
Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by
Elisabeth Hauptmann of the 18th-century English
ballad opera,
The Beggar's Opera, by
John Gay, and four ballads by
François Villon, with music by
Kurt Weill.
Although there is debate as to how much, if any, Hauptmann might have
contributed to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
The role of Jenny in
The Beggar's Opera, by
John Gay, was based on an actual person,
Jenny Diver, née Mary Young, who was was a notorious
British pickpocket in the mid 1700's. She was executed on Wednesday, the 18th of March, 1741 (
link below).
The Three Penny Opera was first performed at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in 1928 (
link below) on a set designed by
Caspar Neher.
Despite an initially poor reception, it became a great success, playing
400 times in the next two years. The performance was a springboard for
one of the best known interpreters of Brecht and Weill's work,
Lotte Lenya, who was married to Weill.
The work was considered "
Degenerate Art" by the
Nazi Party; ironically it became a favourite of Berlin's "smart set" – Count
Harry Kessler recorded in his diary meeting at the performance an ambassador and a director of the
Dresdner Bank (and their wives), and concluded "One simply has to have been there."
Critics noticed that Brecht had included the four
Villon songs translated by Ammer. Brecht responded by saying that he had
"a fundamental laxity in questions of literary property."
By 1933, when Weill and Brecht were forced to leave Germany by the
Nazi seizure of power, the play had been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times on European stages.
photo: Weill-Lenya Research Center
Lenya was born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer to Catholic
working class parents in
Vienna, Austria-Hungary. In 1914 she went to
Zürich to study, her first job was at the
Schauspielhaus, using the stage name Lotte Lenja. She moved to Berlin in 1921.
In 1922 she was seen by her future husband, German composer
Kurt Weill, during an audition for his first stage score
Zaubernacht, a children's
pantomime for solo
soprano and chamber orchestra. She
was cast but owing to her loyalty to her voice coach she declined the
role. She accepted the part of Jenny in the first performance of
The Threepenny Opera (
Die Dreigroschenoper) in 1928, and the part became her breakthrough role. During the last years of the
Weimar Republic, she was busy in film and theatre, and especially in
Brecht-
Weill plays. She made dozens of recordings of Weill's songs (
link below).
In March 1933, she moved to Paris where she sang the leading part in the Brecht-Weill "sung ballet",
The Seven Deadly Sins.
Lenya and Weill settled in New York City on September 10, 1935. During
World War II, Lenya did a number of stage performances, recordings and radio performances for the troops, as well as the
Voice of America. After a badly received part in her husband's
musical The Firebrand of Florence in 1945 in
New York, she withdrew from the stage.
Dozens of people have done
covers of the most famous song from the opera,
Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, also known as
Mack the Knife or
The Ballad of Mack the Knife. Some of the most famous singers were
Bobby Darin,
Frank Sinatra,
Ella Fitzgerald,
Tony Bennett,
Marianne Faithfull,
Nick Cave,
Brian Setzer and the most famous version of the song,
Louis Armstrong, who introduced it to American audiences (
links below).
In 1956, Lenya was present in the studio when Armstrong recorded
Mack the Knife.
Armstrong improvised the line "Look out for Miss Lotte Lenya!" and
added her name to the list of Mack's female conquests in the song.
In 1994 there was a a video documentary,
September Songs - The Music Of Kurt Weill. The performers in it were
Elvis Costello,
Lou Reed,
David Johansen,
Nick Cave,
PJ Harvey,
Teresa Stratas,
Lotte Lenya,
Betty Carter,
William S. Burroughs,
The Persuasions, and
Stan Ridgway (video version only).
The songs featured in the video were released in a compilation album on CD in 1997. One of the cuts from this album is by
Nick Cave who does a fantastic rendition of
Mac the Knife (
link below) from
The Threepenny Opera.
Tracklist:
Side 1:
A1.1 - Prologue (Spoken)
A1.2 - Overture
A1.3 - The Ballad Of Mack The Knife
A1.4 - Morning Anthem
A1.5 - Instead - Of - Song
A1.6 - Wedding Song
A1.7 - Pirate Jenny
A1.8 - Army Song
A1.9 - Love Song
A1.10 - Ballad Of Dependency
A1.11 - Melodrama And Polly's Song
A1.12 - Ballad Of The Easy Life
A1.13 - The World Is Mean
Side 2:
B1.1 - Barbara Song
B1.2 - Tango - Ballad
B1.3 - Jealousy Duet
B1.4 - How To Survive
B1.5 - Useless Song
B1.6 - Solomon Song
B1.7 - Call From The Grave
B1.8 - Death Message
B1.9 - Finale: The Mounted Messenger
Companies, etc.
Copyright (c) – Lowe's Inc.
Credits:
Banjo, Guitar – Ralph Colicchio
Clarinet – Charles Russo, Herbert Tishman
Conductor [Musical Director] – Samuel Matlowsky
Drums [Tympany], Percussion [Jercussion] – Stan Koor
Music By –
Kurt Weill
Orchestra, Piano – The Threepenny Opera Orchestra*
Other [Introduction] – Gerald Price (tracks: A1.1)
Other [Production Staged By] –
Carmen Capalbo
Photography By [Cover Photo] – Gene Cook
Text By [Original Text] –
Bert Brecht*
Translated By [English Adaptation Of Lyrics] –
Marc Blitzstein
Trombone – Elliot Philips
Trumpet – Bernard Ross, Harry Jenkins
Vocals [J. J. Peachum] – Martin Wolfson
Vocals [Streetsinger] – Gerald Price
Vocals, Performer [Jenny] –
Lotte Lenya
Vocals, Performer [Lucy Brown] –
Beatrice Arthur
Vocals, Performer [Macheath - Mack The Knife] – Scott Merrill
Vocals, Performer [Mrs. Peachum] –
Charlotte Rae
Vocals, Performer [Polly Peachum] –
Jo Sullivan (2)
Vocals, Performer [Tiger Brown] –
George Tyne
Notes:
The complete score. (cover)
M-G-M RECORDS - A DIVISION OF © LOEW'S INCORPORATED. PRINTED IN U.S.A.
Made in U.S.A.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Matrix / Runout (stamped, Side A): E3121 S1
Matrix / Runout (stamped, Side B): E3121 S2
Kurt Weill,
Marc Blitzstein – The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper)
Label: MGM Records – E3121
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1954
Genre: Folk, World, & Country, Stage & Screen
Style: Chanson, Score, Ballad, Musical
Viewfinder links:
Die Dreigoschenoper (Threepenny Opera)
Bertold Brecht
Bobby Darin
Ella Fitzgerald
Lotte Lenya
Frank Sinatra
Kurt Weill
Net links:
The Threepenny Opera
Lotte Lenya Audio Files
Lotte Lenya Discography
Lotte Lenya Filmography
Kurt Weill Foundation for Music
Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. ~ Lotte Lenya bio
Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. ~ Kurt Weill bio
Kurt Weill Compositions
Kurt Weill discography
Capital Punishment UK ~ Jenny Diver (Mary Young)
YouTube links:
The Threepenny Opera (complete, 53 minutes)
Lotte Lenya ~ Moritat (Mack the Knife)
Mack the Knife (1931 film)
Louis Armstrong - Mack the Knife
Nick Cave - Mack The Knife
Bobby Darin - Mack the Knife
Ella Fitzgerald - Mack the Knife
Frank Sinatra - Mack the Knife
Sting - The Ballad of Mack the Knife
date & photographer unknown
Styrous® ~ Thursday, October 18, 2018
