| Kurt Weill established himself as the leading theatrical composer in Germany with a dozen stage works, including Mahagonny, Happy End, The Silver Lake, and Threepenny Opera. In Paris he composed The Seven Deadly Sins for Balanchine, as well as an operetta for London. Weill came to New York in 1935 his first Broadway success was Knickerbocker Holiday (Maxwell Anderson), followed by the even bigger hits Lady in the Dark (Ira Gershwin, Moss Hart) and One Touch of Venus (Ogden Nash, S.J. Perelman). In 1947, Weill was awarded the first Tony for a musical score for his Broadway opera Street Scene (Elmer Rice, Langston Hughes). He then teamed up with Alan Jay Lerner for Love Life (now considered the first “concept” musical). Weill's final Broadway work, before he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 50 in 1950, was Lost in the Stars (Anderson).
Lotte Lenya was born in Vienna in 1898, her first stage success came as Jenny in Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera (1928). After creating the role of Anna in his Seven Deadly Sins in Paris, Lenya accompanied Weill to New York, where she appeared in The Eternal Road (1937). After Weill’s death, she recreated the role of Jenny in Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of The Threepenny Opera off-Broadway in 1954 (Tony Award). She then made a series of landmark recordings which launched her second career as the foremost interpreter of Weill’s music. In 1966 her portrayal of Frau Schneider in Cabaret (directed by Hal Prince) earned her a second Tony nomination. On screen she appeared in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (Oscar nomination), andas the stiletto-toed Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love. She succumbed to cancer in 1981 and is buried next to Weill. |
