Threepenny Opera - Barbara Song

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 3/27/14 at 1:54pm

Does anyone know WHY Brecht and Weil call Polly's "Song of Yes and No" the Barbara Song? Is this possibly a reference to Othello? (There's the Barbara who Desdemona remembers has singing the Willow song?) I'm prepping for a production at the moment and I am stumped by this.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/27/14 at 6:05pm

I don't know THREEPENNY that well, but the following work:

Nine Famous Operas: What's Really Going On!
By Iris J. Arnesen

...says the song's title is a reference to the word "barbarous", "which Brecht frequently used when speaking of immorality." (The immorality, according to Ms. Arnesen, is the greed with which both Mac and Polly approach marriage.)

You might want to look at Arnesen's book, which I found with a google search. I'm certainly not a legitimate source on that particular opera or song (or even of OTHELLO).

Updated On: 3/27/14 at 06:05 PM

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 3/27/14 at 10:56pm

In the long-running Off-Broadway/Blitzstein production in the 1950's, Bea Arthur, who played Lucy Brown, sang the Barbara Song. Her recording is FABULOUS, a harbinger of great things to come for Ms. Arthur.

[newintown]

Posted: 3/28/14 at 10:11am

I've always thought that giving the "Barbarasong" to Lucy makes as much sense as giving "The Man In The Moon Is A Lady" to Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside.

Of course, if they had never seen or heard Mame, most people would passively accept seeing Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside sing "The Man In The Moon Is A Lady."

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/30/14 at 8:47pm

I haven't heard all the recordings, not even of the past 30 years, but I do love Megan Mullally's cover. (Bea Arthur is also terrific, even if she is playing the wrong character for the song. Off the top of my head, it seems to me that having Lucy sing "The Barbara Song" "makes sense" in a way Brecht abhors--because it provokes no curiosity on the spectator's part. Having Polly sing it, on the other hand, has the opposite effect and is a great example of the "estrangement effect" for which Brecht is famous. (Note: it is POLLY who is "made strange" because the song seems wrong for her character. The spectator is provoked to critical thought, not "alienation".))

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 3/30/14 at 8:57pm

That element is completely missing in the current production. The lyrics they're using fit Polly's situation perfectly, and it asked no work of the audience. I didn't know it wasn't originally Polly's song till I read it here.