Janet Jackson wrote:
>(I'm back. Had pneumonia, went on holidays, hurt my back, but
>coming good now and able to read the list again.)
>
>
Ouch.
>What's mishugass?
>
>
Yiddish: "craziness."
>I like this, as I usually like Ken's loud meditations,
>but I think it might benefit from some editing.
>In particular, why not end it with
>
>
>>waiting perhaps for a Voice
>>to order broken silence
>>
>>
>or is there a pun I'm missing here, or something.
>I'm not familiar with Stratas so it could be anything.
>
>
Risk, as I said. I didn't expect it to succeed. Teresa Stratas, like
most classical performers, esp. singers, is a personal obsession, so
nothing about the writing pretends universality--though I'd love to read
it to a tribesman in Borneo. Happy End is a Brecht & Weill
collaboration, one of many though hardly on the Dreigroschenoper or
Mahagonny level. I felt I needed a reference to another Weill
composition beyond "Surabaya Johnny," an incredible song. There really
are any number of "Stratas people" around who exchange pirate recordings
of her opera performance broadcasts. Ahem.
Loud meditations?
The story about Lenya meeting Stratas is true. The latter was making a
specialty of Jenny in Mahagonny, Lenya created the role in
1920something. As I heard it she presented herself to the younger
soprano backstage, after a performance, and all but ordained her as a
priestess of the cult of Brecht & Weill. She gave Stratas access to all
the unpublished material her husband left in a bank vault. Stratas
recorded a CD called The Unknown Kurt Weill which included some
wonderful music as well as junk like "Schickelgruber." When Lenya was
in the last throes of lung cancer, a true agony, Stratas cancelled
chunks of her performing scheduled to nurse her, slept by her bed, was
with her when she died. Separate love from madness, I dare you....
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
-Douglas Adams
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