> The story about Lenya meeting Stratas is true. The latter was making a
> specialty of Jenny in Mahagonny, Lenya created the role in 1920something.
I'm getting a little confused here, Ken -- I thought (Pirate) Jenny was what
Lotte Lenya sang in +Threepenny Opera+. "Surabaya Johnny" is (indeed) from
Mahagony -- isn't it the only song there which was originally written in
English?
The top of my head says 3dO was thirties, and Mahagony was later, written
when Brecht/Weill had skipped to the States. I think I have a CD of the
original performance of 3dO, and another from the fifties when LL's voice
was virtually gone, and Mahagony on tape -- isn't the twenties a little
early?
But (almost certainly) I've managed to screw this up in my head -- can you
uncrumple this much-crumpled thing?
Robin
> 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 She gave Stratas access to all the unpublished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
|