Weill: Threepenny Opera

[LeMartinPecheur]

Has anyone ever seen this work? Is there a worthwhile DVD of a stage performance?

I've owned the classic (dodgy?) Lenya/Bruckner-Ruggerberg recording since I was a student. It has a libretto but absolutely no notes, and I've only slowly worked out that what I took to be otiose linking narrations are indeed part of the work as originally staged by Brecht and Weill. Lately I've looked for a DVD version and come up with very little, even on amazon.de. (Did buy the 1930 Pabst film, but that has only about half of W's score - much mangled - and the whole plot has been drastically altered and politicised by Brecht.)

Seems like it's a work that nobody bothers to stage any more Except that the Cambridge Opera Handbook records that in 1986/7 it was equal seventh (alongside Hamlet) for number of new productions in W Germany.

What's going on guys?

[rauschwerk]

There was a National Theatre staging last year, with live cinema relays. For me, it didn't erase memories of an Ipswich Arts Theatre production in the 1970s.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Saw the NT live (i.e at the NT) but I didn't find it tremendously rewarding. To some extent I've filed away the memories under a heading "won't be re-visiting that again" and it didn't excite close interestor memories from the second half onwards or after. (Sorry; on the whole I abstain from adding my voice to threads just to express antipathy - passim threads on Elgar Oratorios etc).

My lack of appreciation must be down to me. I am a regular attender at Covent Garden, etc and by the end I'd had enough of actors' singing -or those actors. Also, I didn't appreciate the Weill re-working - seemed repetitive, perhaps thin, by the end. Also we'd invited our daughter (in her 20's) and she didn't appreciate it either. For myself, I'd prefer the John Gay original. It might work better as a film, with good vocals (No idea if that has already been done).

[gurnemanz]

I'm a big fan of the work. I remember doing a dodgy but spirited version of the Kanonen-song duet with a friend of mine as a student. (We were doing Brecht as part of our German course). I've only seen it live twice. The recent NT version was enjoyable but I was also not totally convinced. The other time was Scottish Opera on tour over twenty years ago, of which I have very fond memories.

I will always prefer the German original but have yet to see it live as such. I also got the classic and indispensable Brückner-Rüggeberg version on LP very early - then CD. I found a couple of complete performances on YouTube, which I have dipped into, eg this one from Hamburg (Kanonen-Song is at 31.30).

[umslopogaas]

I have the Lenya version on LP and CD. The LPs are American Columbia Masterworks series and come with a booklet containing copious notes, photos and libretto in German and English, as well as a rather fine poster. The CDs also have a booklet with notes and libretto in three languages, but no photos or poster.

I also have a Decca CD version with Ute Lemper. There is a booklet with libretto in German and English, but no background notes.

I'm sure I once saw it, decades ago and probably at ENO, but alas I didnt keep a programme. Given the popularity of Mack The Knife, its surprising we dont hear it more often on R3. Come to think of it, I dont remember hearing even Mack The Knife for a very long time.

Weill must be out of favour with the BBC. Can anyone remember hearing a note of any of his other operas?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I have the Lenya version on LP and CD.

I have the "other" Lenya recording - the "Original Cast" abridged version from 1928:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/tn0/Dreigroschenoper-Moon-Alabama-Lenya/B004ZHUO6E

... very interesting in that Lenya sings much more sweetly here than she does in the '50s - the "Lenya Growl" wasn't there in the original production (thirty years' more fags to be got through before that distinct timbre would emerge).

I used also to have an LP with Raul Julia playing MacHeath - a very good production and recording which doesn't seem to have made it to CD

Weill must be out of favour with the BBC. Can anyone remember hearing a note of any of his other operas?

The Second Symphony has been featured on Afternoon on Three within the past couple of years - but otherwise no.

[Bryn]

... Weill must be out of favour with the BBC. Can anyone remember hearing a note of any of his other operas?

Oh yes, just about all of them, but that was back in the late '70s or early '80s. They included a very full production of The Threepenny Opera in a suitably earthy English translation. The same era also had fine, full length productions of Gay's The Beggar's Opera and its sequel, Polly.

[Dave2002]

I wasn't too keen on the NT production last year. Before that I saw it in Sweden, in Umeå, and I think it was performed in Swedish. I quite liked that one - simpler than the NT production which had lots of fancy tricks. Re other Weill works, I believe ENO did Street Scene - which I saw quite some while back.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wasn't too keen on the NT production last year. Before that I saw it in Sweden, in Umeå, and I think it was performed in Swedish. I quite liked that one - simpler than the NT production which had lots of fancy tricks. Re other Weill works, I believe ENO did Street Scene - which I saw quite some while back.

I didn't see it, but NT productions of Brecht in the past (some time past: the late '80s & early '90s - I remember a Resistible Rise and a Mother Courage) have been rather over-polished and, yes, "lots of fancy tricks", which rather goes against the grain(s) of what BB had in mind for Epic Theatre. Smaller-scale (and lower-budgeted) touring companies at around the same time got closer to what I understand to be the necessary grit.

[LeMartinPecheur]

There was a National Theatre staging last year, with live cinema relays. For me, it didn't erase memories of an Ipswich Arts Theatre production in the 1970s.

Did Ipswich have a particular Weill thing back then? Mrs LMP and I visited a friend there and we think we saw Happy End (a production of it there at about the right date is recorded online).

[At that time I didn't regard Weill as a 'proper classical composer' and therefore didn't write it up in my concert diary, a.k.a. 'The LMP Musical Trainspotter's Notebook']

[LeMartinPecheur]

I have the "other" Lenya recording - the "Original Cast" abridged version from 1928:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/tn0/Dreigroschenoper-Moon-Alabama-Lenya/B004ZHUO6E

... very interesting in that Lenya sings much more sweetly here than she does in the '50s - the "Lenya Growl" wasn't there in the original production (thirty years' more fags to be got through before that distinct timbre would emerge).

I used also to have an LP with Raul Julia playing MacHeath - a very good production and recording which doesn't seem to have made it to CD

fhg: quite agree about Lenya 1930 and 1950s. Both well worth hearing but very different. I have much the same tracks on this disc https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kurt-Weill-...noper+dietrich but do envy you your Klemperer Kleine Dreigroschenmusik! OK was very keen on Dreigroschenoper, seeing it ten times in a matter of weeks, and may also have been key in the acceptance of Mahagonny Songspiel by being heard singing the Benares Song very loudly in the lobby right after the premiere. There were even hopes of him putting on The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Kroll Opera. But the National Socialists saw off that acute threat to German morals in short order What wouldn't we now give for a Klemperer Weill Icon box or similar? Or maybe a single disc of Otto sings Weill??

Haven't managed to plough through the full track listing on your CD. Mine also has Carola Neher from the original 1928 production in Pirate Jenny and the Barbara Song, and four numbers from the 1930 French production, again with the Lewis Ruth band under Mackaben. Plus Bert Brecht himself intoning, tunefully but not very charismatically, the Moritat and Das Lied von der Unzulanglichkeit...

Would love to hear Raul Julia as MacHeath. The production is mentioned and illustrated in the Cambridge Handbook: The Addams Family meets Brecht/ Weill - who could resist?

[Petrushka]

I have the John Mauceri recording with Rene Kollo and Ute Lemper: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kurt-Weill-...eigroschenoper

The work is stuffed full of good tunes and it is indeed a surprise that it isn't heard much more. I also greatly like the London Sinfonietta/David Atherton set of various works by the Berlin (as opposed to Broadway) Weill. The Kleine Dreigroschenmusik on that set is very good until you hear the Klemperer/Philharmonia recording which goes with a tremendous swing and you almost feel you are in pre-Hitler Berlin.

[gurnemanz]

Also a good recent version from HK Gruber. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weill-Dreig.../dp/B00001R3MQ

Good value (no texts) 10 CD set contains two recordings of Dreigroschenoper songs: Brückner-Rüggeberg (1958) and Mackeben (1930) with Lotte Lenya + a lot of other interesting recordings.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Good value (no texts) [URL="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Recordings-Bert-Brecht-Weill/dp/B00F2V02H8[/URL] contains two recordings of Dreigroschenoper songs: Brückner-Rüggeberg (1958) and Mackeben (1930) with Lotte Lenya + a lot of other interesting recordings.

Oh - that is good value, if the remasterings are well done; the 1930 Dreigroschenoper is the one I mentioned yesterday - but the other items in the box are very tempting. I haven't heard Der Jasager since I saw a performance in 1980. (I couldn't work out what the chorus was singing at the start - it sounded like "It is important to know when to be a creature": it is, in fact, "It is important to know when to be in agreement" - so much for the greater intelligibility of opera sung in English!)

[rauschwerk]

Did Ipswich have a particular Weill thing back then? Mrs LMP and I visited a friend there and we think we saw Happy End (a production of it there at about the right date is recorded online).

Happy End was in 1989 (I didn't see it) - Threepenny Opera was several years earlier. Perhaps Antony Tuckey (artistic director of the Arts Theatre) was keen on Weill.