Word: weill
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...swallowed short one. Jocelyn Herbert's cumbersome set obstructs movement, draining energy. But emotion intensifies after a dozy first act. As a singer, Sting needs the help of a recording studio, although he summons at least a shadow of the requisite cavalier charm. The main virtue is Kurt Weill's indestructible score...
When Bertolt Brecht created his legendary Mahagonny, that "City of Nets" where every pleasure is for sale, he neglected to specify exactly where it was. It was originally thought to be the Nazi-threatened Berlin of the 1920s, but the libretto that he wrote for Kurt Weill's most ambitious opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), seems to be set on a wildly imaginary Florida Gold Coast. But to Jonathan Miller, the gifted British director who was commissioned to stage a new Mahagonny at the enterprising, young Los Angeles Music Center Opera, there could...
...parable itself, though, is rather silly. Brecht was a brilliant playwright and poet, but his ideas were pure Stalin-era blustering. As a viewer sits watching the hero Jimmy get executed for having been unable to pay his bar bill, he can only marvel at the gorgeous music Weill provided for this nonsense...
...much so in the lovely "cranes duet"). Gary Bachlund brings an appropriate touch of Nelson Eddy to the role of the doomed hero, though Anna Steiger (daughter of Rod) plays Jenny with a less happy touch of Jeanette MacDonald. As Lotte Lenya taught a whole generation of admirers, Weill's heroines should sound sexy, metallic and bitter...
Mahagonny marks the start of a big season for Weill, who would have been 90 next March. The Threepenny Opera, with Sting as Mack the Knife, began previews in Washington last week and moves to Broadway in October. Menahem Golan soon plans to release a freewheeling film adaptation starring Raul Julia and Julia Migenes. There will be Weill festivals in Cleveland, London and Dusseldorf, and lots of new recordings. The Los Angeles Mahagonny makes an interesting beginning...