From Publishers Weekly
A provocative but uneven look at the composer of The Threepenny Opera, Lady in the Dark and other well-known musicals, this biography traces Weill's career from his satirical Weimar collaborations with Brecht to the musicals he created for Broadway after fleeing the Nazis in 1933. Brooklyn College film professor Hirsch (Harold Prince and the American Musical Theater) draws on extensive documentation from New York's Kurt Weill Foundation and new interviews with surviving participants to argue that the distinction most writers make between "Berlin Weill" and "Broadway Weill" is artificial. He explores, instead, what remained constant in Weill's creative personality despite the divergent styles of the Broadway and Berlin years. This intriguing approach is somewhat undermined by questionable assertions throughout the book. (For example, he cites the notoriously anti-Semitic music critic Virgil Thomson as an authority for the dubious notion that Weill's music evoked "the Jewish underworld of Berlin.") The book does, however, offer a textured portrait of Weill's Broadway career, and there are useful details about how his widow, the gifted performer Lotte Lenya, helped resuscitate his reputation with the 1950s production of Threepenny Opera in Greenwich Village. Hirsch's volume is good for casual enthusiasts and larger theater collections, though music fans may find the absence of analytical comment on Weill's compositions a drawback.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From Library Journal
The Berlin premiere of The Threepenny Opera in 1928 was a pivotal event for Kurt Weill, securing him wide notoriety as a composer for musical theater and provoking a number of raised eyebrows from traditional figures in Weimar Germany. His exotic rhythms, evocative harmonic changes, and unique jazzy flavor all combined to produce a distinctive sound. Hirsch (film, CUNY, Brooklyn Coll.) traces Weill's illustrious career from these early days through his immigration to the United States, his ultimate destination after fleeing from the Nazis. Here, Weill wrote the scores for such memorable shows as Lady in the Dark, Knickerbocker Holiday, Lost in the Stars, and others. Hirsch provides details about each production, including an analysis of its artistic, theatrical, and social components as well as commentary on its public reception. Insights are offered into Weill's relationships, including his complex marriage to Lotte Lenya, his collaborations with the mercurial Bertolt Brecht, and his associations with Ira Gershwin, Alan Jay Lerner, Agnes de Mille, and countless others. In addition to his basic research, Hirsch incorporates material based upon a number of interviews that he recently conducted with prominent individuals (Harold Prince, Fred Ebb, etc.), enabling him to present additional perspectives on Weill's life and work as compared to previous biographies. This absorbing and well-researched work should be especially appealing to those interested in the history and evolution of musical theater. Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
