Threepenny Opera recording
Threepenny Opera recording
#0Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/9/05 at 10:57pm
Does anyone have a Threepenny Opera recording? If so, which is better the '55 one or the '94 LA recording in London? I'm thinking of getting one..is the '94 LA one worth it? Thanks.
And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps...
What did she realize, Kitten?
That all the songs she'd listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, if you don't believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had...
Where?
On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.
Kringas
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/27/05
#1re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/9/05 at 10:58pm
I much prefer the 1994 recording. The 1954 is good for its historical value, but Blitzstein's lyrics (as clever as they may be) are devoid of any bite.
Edited to correct a typo
"How do you like THAT 'misanthropic panache,' Mr. Goldstone?" - PalJoey
Updated On: 8/10/05 at 10:58 PM
adewitt
Swing Joined: 7/19/05
#2re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 3:06am
Kringas wrote:
I much prefer the 1994 recording. The 1954 is good for its historical value, but Blitzen's lyrics (as clever as they may be) are devoid of any bite.
First of all, "Blitzen" is one of Santa's Reindeer, not the person who wrote the lyrics. That would be Marc Blitzstein.
Second, Lotte Lenya herself, widow of Kurt Weill, was responsible for the 50s production. She was Weill's life-long collaborator and had worked with him and Bertholt Brecht on the original 1928 production. She would know better than anyone how it was intended to be performed. This production ran for 2,611 performances in 1955-- the longest running musical in history, up to that time.
Third, everyone--including Bertholt Brecht himself--considered Marc Blitzstein's translation THE best.
Finally, the 1954 version on CD is excellent. The sound quality is superb and I never tire of hearing it. In addition to Lotte Lenya as Jennie--for which she won the Tony Award that year--Bea Arthur, Charlotte Rae, Jo Sullivan Loesser, Scott Merrill, and John Astin.
As far as I am concerned, any translation but Blitzstein's is lame.
#3re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 10:50am
The 1954 recording is worth buying for Lotte Lenya alone.
The Threepenny Opera is one of the greatest musicals ever written. Kurt Weill, IMO, is the father of modern musicals.
Updated On: 8/10/05 at 10:50 AM
wildcat
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/04
#4re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 10:51amI prefer the 1976 Lincoln Centre recording with Raul Julia and Ellen Greene, and translation and orchestrations closer to the Berlin originals. Although Blitzstein's version is marvellous, and the cast definitive, it was (by necessity for the time) quite sanitised.
#5re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 10:54amWildcat, I believe that the 1976 recording is out-of-print, so it's not an option.
HotelActorBrooklyn
Swing Joined: 7/21/05
#6re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 10:57amThe '54 version is the BEST! It is the orginal Marc Blitzstein translation. I was in a produciton of it a few years ago.. Amazing show! Hopefully the new Wallace Shawn translation coming to Studio 54 in the Spring will be halfway decent. The '94 Donmar Warehouse prod has good instrumentals with a large orchestra but the translated lyrics are horrible I think.
roquat
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/25/05
#7re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 10:58amYes, but you can still get hold of it. It's wonderfully nasty and savage. Ellen Greene is a revelation as Jenny--she brings a Shakespearean charge to the role. Anyone who only knows her as Audrey in "Little Shop" would be quite stunned.
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
#8re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 11:03amI have the '76 version and love it. If you can get your hands on it, go for it. But I still say that the 1954 version is the best, and the most affordable (if that's an issue).
roquat
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/25/05
#9re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 11:13amThe Donmar Warehouse recording contains the scariest performance of "Mack the Knife" (Moritat) I have ever heard. The lyrics, involving child murder, etc., are savage and the singer delivers them with such knifelike concentration I was afraid to move while listening to it.
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
Borstalboy
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/9/04
#10re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 11:31amBe sure to check out Marianne Faithfull's album of (mostly) Brecht Threepenny songs, "20th Century Blues". I think she is this generation's definitive interpreter of Kurt Weill.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
HotelActorBrooklyn
Swing Joined: 7/21/05
#11re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 11:52amPlease, Please Errico Fan burn a copy of the Raul Julia version and send it to everyone in the world!! I have always wanted to hear him and Ellen Greene.
#12re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 11:57am
If I had a working burner, I just might! 
#13re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 12:20pmWell, Bertolt Brecht died in 1956, so it's not like he had many English translations to choose from as THE best. I did some research on the show in 2000 when I did a production and most criticism I read hailed the 1976 production as the closest translation to the original. My personal favorite is the 1994 London cast, though it should be considered an updated revisal that only resembles the original text.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#14re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 12:47pm
The 2006 Roundabout version stinks!! Alan Cumming is horrible as Mack the Knife.
Oh wait, hold that thought until May 2006.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#15re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 1:02pmI say, screw all these translations! The German recording of DIE DREIGROSCHENOPER, with a YOUNG Lotte Lenya, is thrilling!
#16re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 1:06pmI can't wait to see Alan as Mack the Knife!!! That's why I want a recording now, so I can get ready when I go see it in Studio 54...I'm excited for next year!!
And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps...
What did she realize, Kitten?
That all the songs she'd listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, if you don't believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had...
Where?
On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.
#17re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 1:12pm
Borstal - "I think she is this generation's definitive interpreter of Kurt Weill."
You mean Ute Lemper, right?
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
Kringas
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/27/05
#18re: Threepenny Opera recording
Posted: 8/10/05 at 6:14pm
First of all, "Blitzen" is one of Santa's Reindeer, not the person who wrote the lyrics. That would be Marc Blitzstein.
The typo has been corrected. You can breathe now.
Second, Lotte Lenya herself, widow of Kurt Weill, was responsible for the 50s production. She was Weill's life-long collaborator and had worked with him and Bertholt Brecht on the original 1928 production. She would know better than anyone how it was intended to be performed. This production ran for 2,611 performances in 1955-- the longest running musical in history, up to that time.
That may well be. A question was posed. I said I prefer the 1994 recording.
I still maintain that Blitzstein's lyrics have the least bite.
Take "Tango-Ballad" (Known also as "Ballad of Immoral Earnings" and "Knocking Shop Tango") for example.
Translation by Ralph Manheim and John Willett:
Once I was pregnant, so the doctor said
So we reversed positions on the bed
You thought your weight would make it premature
But in the end we flushed it down the sewer
That could not last, but what would I not give
To see that whorehouse where we used to live?
Translation by Jeremy Sams (1994):
We had the baby, but it didn't last long
When I fell pregnant it was festive for a day
But then we felt it best to wash it all away
The drunken doctor told us what to do
We took the mess and flushed it down the loo
And for a while a smile was rarely seen
Around that knocking shop in Bethnel Green
Translation by Mark Blitzstein:
Now sleeps for the night for they say
It ain't bad by day
So then I had my fill, so I wouldn't stir
It looked soon I might be taking care of her
You'd think a woman had a right to have one gripe
You left me flat, Well I just ain't the working type
We locked the door and each commenced to roam
Goodbye sweet two by four that we called home
"How do you like THAT 'misanthropic panache,' Mr. Goldstone?" - PalJoey
Updated On: 8/10/05 at 06:14 PM
Videos