Threepenny Opera Help!

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 8:48pm

My University is doing this in the Spring. I've asked about it before and I was told to find out what translation we would be using, so I hope that this is all the information because I copied it straight from our website.

I own the 1954 Cast Recording.

Is there a recording for this translation because I would think that it would be somewhat different, since they all seem somewhat different?

The Threepenny Opera
By Bertolt Bercht, Music by Kurt Weill,
Libretto Translation by Robert David MacDonald, Lyrics by Jeremy Sams


Based on Elizabeth Hauptmann's German translation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, an 18th century satire on popular entertainment that parodied the bourgeois and presented a veiled political attack on the prime minister's disregard for the commoners, Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill created the 1928 adaptation that almost caused riots when it opened. Bobby Darin's hit song "Mack The Knife" is from the score along with the famous "Pirate Jenny" number. The MacDonald/Sams adaptation pushes the time ahead to the future King William's coronation and serves up a delectable dark satire complete with London’s society of suave thieves, sassy prostitutes, ingenious criminals, corrupt police, and reprieving royalty.

[professor]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 9:20pm

The Donmar Warehouse production of Threepenny Opera used the MacDonald/Sams translation. I believe there IS a cast recording of that production. You can probably find it on Amazon.com

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 10:08pm

Wait, wait, wait.

Unless things have changed, I could swear the McDonald/Sams was not available to do...especially after the travesty of the Open Fist Americanized English lyrics....

If the right are available, then I think I know what show I want to do next!