As their final tribute to the Kurt Weill
centenary, the Champagne and Candlelight chamber opera company
will present music from "The Threepenny Opera" and
"Street Scene" in a double bill they’re calling "American
Weill 2001."
"Last fall, when we did our ’American Weill’ show, a lot
of people came to us afterward and wanted to know why we did
not include any music from ’The Threepenny Opera,’" said
David Yin, artistic director of Champagne and Candlelight. "People
also wanted to hear more music from ’Street Scene.’ Because of
our audience responses, we decided to explore these works in
greater detail." The performance will be mounted at the
First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn Heights.
"The Threepenny Opera," written by Bertolt Brecht with
music by Weill, is based on John Gay’s "The Beggar’s Opera,"
first produced in London’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1728. The
satirical work, which shot barbs at the Italian operatic style
of the time, Prime Minister Walpole, marriage, ladies, gentlemen,
lawyers and commerce, tells the story of the lives and loves
of a group of thieves.
Although "The Threepenny Opera" follows the general
outline of Gay’s work, in keeping with Brecht’s "Epic Theater"
philosophy, which blends Marxism with art, it concentrates more
on the social evils that drive individuals into crime than satire
of sentimental tragedy. (Brecht believed that the theater should
motivate people to act. In order to do that people had to feel
a distance between themselves and what was happening on the stage.)
"Threepenny Opera" was a great success in the post-World
War I Germany of the 1920s. But when the Nazis came to power,
Weill, who was Jewish, was forced to flee, first to Paris then
to the United States. In America, Weill composed such Broadway
hits as "Knickerbocker Holiday" (with playwright Maxwell
Anderson), "Lady in the Dark" (with lyricist Ira Gershwin
and playwright Moss Hart) and "Johnny Johnson" (with
playwright Paul Green).
"Street Scene," written in 1920 by Elmer Rice, depicts
the life of lower-middle-class New Yorkers living in a tenement
and trapped by their seemingly hopeless environment. In 1947,
it was adapted into an opera with music by Weill and lyrics by
Langston Hughes.
For "American Weill 2001," pianist Taya Shumerina,
music director for Champagne and Candlelight, and a member of
the music staff of The Amato Opera company in Manhattan, will
play numbers from "Threepenny Opera," including "The
Ballad of Pleasant Living," "Polly’s Farewell Song,"
and of course, the ever-popular "Ballad of Mack the Knife."
Nick and Kathy Titakis will star in highlights from "Street
Scene," playing the parts of Frank Maurant and his daughter
Rose. The Titakises are musical theater veterans who appeared
last year in Champagne and Candlelight’s presentation of Gilbert
and Sullivan’s "Iolanthe," also produced at the church.
Mila de Costa, a dramatic soprano who sings with the Slovenia
Opera, will sing the part of Maurant’s wife, Anna. And Dayle
VanderSande, a composer and conductor, will act the part of Mr.
Easter, Rose’s boss, a married man who would like to make her
his mistress.
Yin, who starred in last fall’s "American Weill" show
and last spring’s production of "The Count of Luxembourg,"
will play Sam Kaplan, a poor lawyer and Rose’s boyfriend.
According to Yin, what drives Champagne and Candlelight to explore
Weill’s body of work is that it combines an operatic style with
more modern show tunes. Indeed, many of Weill’s musicals were
later turned into Hollywood motion pictures starring such famous
actors as Nelson Eddy, Ginger Rogers, Ava Gardner, Robert Walker
and Shelly Winters.
Last winter, the Brooklyn Academy of Music staged Weill’s monumental
opera, "The Eternal Road," a much-acclaimed collaboration
between the Chemnitz Opera of Germany, The New Israeli Opera
and Opera Krakow of Poland.
Although Weill’s name may not be as well known in America as
Richard Rogers or Stephen Sondheim, his great versatility of
style, which ranged from opera to music hall, has influenced
more sophisticated musicals such as "Cabaret." And
although his compositions for the American stage are more lyrical
and optimistic than works composed with Brecht, his frequent
European collaborator, in his work with Hughes as well as Green
and Anderson, Weill set an example for many future composers
using song to tackle serious issues.
Celebrating Weill’s accomplishments is a good way to remind today’s
jaded Broadway theatergoers that theater can be more than bloated
production numbers and big-name stars.
"American Weill 2001" plays
June 8 and June 15 at 7:30 pm; June 9 and June 16 at 8 pm. Tickets
are $15, $10 seniors, students and children under 12. The Chapel
Theater is located at First Unitarian Church, 50 Monroe Place
in Brooklyn Heights. For more information call (212) 502-0331.
