Musical Misfires by Mark A. Robinson

Author:Mark A. Robinson [Mark A. Robinson and Thomas S. Hischak]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2020-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

LOVEMUSIK

A musical by Alfred Uhry; music by Kurt Weill; lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, etc.

Directed by Harold Prince; musical staging by Patricia Birch

Cast included Michael Cerveris, Donna Murphy, David Pittu, Judith Blazer, John Scherer

Tony Award nominations: Donna Murphy (Best Actress in a Musical); Michael Cerveris (Best Actor in a Musical); David Pittu (Best Featured Actor in a Musical); Jonathan Tunick (Best Orchestrations)

Opened 3 May 2007, Biltmore Theatre, 60 performances

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What an intriguing idea for a musical: the stormy and passionate relationship between composer Kurt Weill and his cabaret singer wife Lotte Lenya. Who? Sadly, these names are not known to contemporary mainstream Broadway audiences. His musicals are too rarely done today and she is mostly remembered (if at all) as Fräulein Schneider in the original production of Cabaret (1966). Yet Weill is an internationally acclaimed artist, one of the few Broadway composers whose music is heard in concert halls and is performed by ballet troupes and opera companies all over the world. Lenya was the toast of nightclubs in Europe and America, made many recordings, and appeared in a handful of films, getting nominated for an Oscar for The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). LoveMusik was a musical about the tempestuous marriage (actually, two marriages) of these two famous people set to the songs that Weill composed for the stage in Germany and America. Such an exciting and risky venture raises three questions: Who would be interested in putting together such a musical? Who would be willing to produce it on Broadway? And who would come and see it? The answers are: Harold Prince, the Manhattan Theatre Club, and very few people. LoveMusik was a labor of love, to say the least, and for those familiar with Weill and Lenya and were enamored of his music, it was a special occasion. For everyone else, it was just a showcase for some outstanding performances.

Producer-director Prince had cast and directed Lenya in Cabaret and the two remained friends up to her death in 1981. Weill, who died in 1950 at the age of fifty, and Lenya were often apart during their separate careers but wrote hundreds of letters to each other, some loving and tender, others bitter and full of accusations about each other’s infidelities. A collection of the letters was published in 1997 and Prince immediately thought they would make fascinating theatre. He told his idea to Alfred Uhry, whom he was currently working with on Parade, who agreed and eventually wrote the libretto. LoveMusik is based on biographical facts but concentrates on the characters as revealed in the letters. Young German composer Weill and Austrian singer-actress Lenya meet on a boat ride across Lake Peetz in 1924 and it is love and lust at first sight. Soon they are living together but quarreling as often as they are making love. Weill convinces the temperamental poet Bertolt Brecht to collaborate on some music-theatre pieces, most famously Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) which premieres in Berlin in 1928 with Lenya playing the whore Jenny the Pirate.

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