Robin Hamilton wrote:
>> 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?
You've got me. I HAD been under the impression that both Pirate Jenny
and Surabaya Johnny were freestanding. I have not heard the entirety of
either Dreig. or Mahagonny in a long time. Mahagonny, according to the
ever-reliable Internet, was first performed in Leipzig in 1930, just
pre-Deluge. Threepenny, which I now discover contains "Seeräuberjenny,"
was premiered in Berlin in August 1928. So they are both dancing on
thin Weimar ice--I can see why Brecht and Weill had to get the hell out
of Europe PDQ. None of this addresses "Surabaya Johnny," which I now
find was in fact part of "Happy End," Berlin premiere 1929.
Lenya created everything of Weill's, or just about everything. Right or
wrong? Either way, she attended a performance of Mahagonny at the Met
in New York in 1979 and made a point of meeting Teresa Stratas, who was
singing Jenny. It is not an exaggeration to say she publicly anointed
the younger singer her successor. Stratas, not known as the most stable
person on earth, upon Lenya's death decided that the old woman's spirit
passed into her. Maybe it did, I don't know. She sang Weill's music
like it was molded around her.
The years of living dangerously....
Ken
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