Kurt Weill

Author : Naomi Graber
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2021-03-27
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780190906603

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Kurt Weill's America by Naomi Graber Pdf

Throughout his life, German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill was fascinated by the idea of America. His European works depict America as a Capitalist dystopia. But in 1935, it became clear that Europe was no longer safe for Weill, and he set sail for New World, and his engagement with American culture shifted. From that point forward, most of his works concerned the idea of "America," whether celebrating her successes, or critiquing her shortcomings. As an outsider-turned-insider, Weill's insights into American culture were unique. He was keenly attuned to the difficult relationship America had with her immigrants, but was slower to grasp the subtleties of others, particularly those surrounding race relations, even though his works reveal that he was devoted to the idea of racial equality. The book treats Weill as a node in a transnational network of musicians, writers, artists, and other stage professionals, all of whom influenced each other. Weill sought out partners from a range of different sectors, including the Popular Front, spoken drama, and the commercial Broadway stage. His personal papers reveal his attempts to navigate not only the shifting tides of American culture, but the specific demands of his institutional and individual collaborators. In reframing Weill's relationship with immigration and nationality, the book also puts nuance contemporary ideas about the relationships of immigrants to their new homes, moving beyond ideas that such figures must either assimilate and abandon their previous identities, or resist the pull of their new home and stay true to their original culture.

Author : Foster Hirsch
Publisher : Hal Leonard Corporation
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2004-02-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0879109904

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Kurt Weill on Stage by Foster Hirsch Pdf

(Limelight). His best-known song is "Mack the Knife," with words by Bertolt Brecht, from The Threepenny Opera , first performed in Weimar Berlin in 1928. Five years later, Kurt Weill fled the Nazis to come to America, where he soon emerged as one of the most admired composers of the Broadway musical stage. His shows included: Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, Street Scene and Lost in the Stars . His songs: "My Ship," "September Song," "Speak Low" and "It Never Was You." This biography concentrates on Weill's career in the United States, but its aim is to explore the truth in the comment made by Weill's wife, the unforgettable Lotte Lenya: "There is no American Weill, there is no German Weill. There is no difference between them. There is only Weill."

Author : Naomi Graber
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780190906580

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Kurt Weill's America by Naomi Graber Pdf

"This book traces composer Kurt Weill's changing relationship with the idea of "America." Throughout his life, Weill was fascinated by the idea of America. His European works such as The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), depict America as a capitalist dystopia filled with gangsters and molls. But in 1935, it became clear that Europe was no longer safe for the Jewish Weill, and he set sail for New World. Once he arrived, he found the culture nothing like he imagined, and his engagement with American culture shifted in intriguing ways. From that point forward, most his works concerned the idea of "America," whether celebrating her successes, or critiquing her shortcomings. As an outsider-turned-insider, Weill's insights into American culture are somewhat unique. He was more attuned than native-born citizens to the difficult relationship America had with her immigrants. However, it took him longer to understand the subtleties in other issues, particularly those surrounding race relations. Weill worked within transnational network of musicians, writers, artists, and other stage professionals, all of whom influenced each other's styles. His personal papers reveal his attempts to navigate not only the shifting tides of American culture, but the specific demands of his institutional and individual collaborators"--

Author : Kurt Weill
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 636 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1997-11-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 0520212401

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Speak Low (When You Speak Love) by Kurt Weill Pdf

Selected letters trace the relationship of the composer and actress, who were married for twenty-four years

Author : Stephen Hinton
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 389 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2012-04-10
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780520951839

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Weill's Musical Theater by Stephen Hinton Pdf

In the first musicological study of Kurt Weill’s complete stage works, Stephen Hinton charts the full range of theatrical achievements by one of twentieth-century musical theater’s key figures. Hinton shows how Weill’s experiments with a range of genres—from one-act operas and plays with music to Broadway musicals and film-opera—became an indispensable part of the reforms he promoted during his brief but intense career. Confronting the divisive notion of "two Weills"—one European, the other American—Hinton adopts a broad and inclusive perspective, establishing criteria that allow aspects of continuity to emerge, particularly in matters of dramaturgy. Tracing his extraordinary journey as a composer, the book shows how Weill’s artistic ambitions led to his working with a remarkably heterogeneous collection of authors, such as Georg Kaiser, Bertolt Brecht, Moss Hart, Alan Jay Lerner, and Maxwell Anderson.

Author : Douglas Jarman
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 1982
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : STANFORD:36105003249427

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Kurt Weill, an Illustrated Biography by Douglas Jarman Pdf

This book is about the life of Kurt Weil, a German composer who spent his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, including The Threepenny Opera, a Marxist critique of capitalism, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife".

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Music
ISBN : UOM:39015056344875

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Kurt Weill Newsletter by Anonim Pdf

Author : Rebecca Schmid
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 227 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Musical theater
ISBN : 9781648250606

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Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein by Rebecca Schmid Pdf

The first study to explore the crucial influence of Kurt Weill on operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein. Theodor Adorno famously proclaimed that the model of Kurt Weill could not be repeated. Yet Weill's stage works set an inescapable precedent for composers on both sides of the Atlantic. Rebecca Schmid explores how Weill's formal innovations in particular laid the groundwork for operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein, although both composers resisted or downplayed his aesthetic contribution to American tradition. Comparative analysis based on Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence and other modes of intertextuality reveals that the principles of Weill's opera reform would catalyze an indigenous movement in sophisticated, socially engaged music theatre. Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein: A Study of Influence focuses on works that represent different phases of Weill's mission to renew the genre of opera, evolving from Die Dreigroschenoper to the musical play Lady in the Dark and the Broadway Opera Street Scene. Blitzstein and Bernstein in turn defied formal boundaries with The Cradle Will Rock, Regina, Trouble in Tahiti, Candide, and West Side Story - part of a short-lived movement in mid-twentieth century America that coincided with a renaissance for Weill's German-period works following the premiere of Blitzstein's translation, The Threepenny Opera, under Bernstein's baton. The unpublished A Pray by Blecht, for which Bernstein rejoined Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins, his collaborators on West Side Story, deepens the connection of Bernstein's aesthetic to Weill.

Author : Robert Gordon,Olaf Jubin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 1001 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780190909734

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The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical by Robert Gordon,Olaf Jubin Pdf

The stage musical constitutes a major industry not only in the US and the UK, but in many regions of the world. Over the last four decades many countries have developed their own musical theatre industries, not only by importing hit shows from Broadway and London but also by establishing or reviving local traditions of musical theatre. In response to the rapid growth of musical theatre as a global phenomenon, The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical presents new scholarly approaches to issues arising from these new international markets. The volume examines the stage musical from theoretical and empirical perspectives including concepts of globalization and consumer culture, performance and musicological analysis, historical and cultural studies, media studies, notions of interculturalism and hybridity, gender studies, and international politics. The thirty-three essays investigate major aspects of the global musical, such as the dominance of Western colonialism in its early production and dissemination, racism and sexism--both in representation and in the industry itself--as well as current conflicts between global and local interests in postmodern cultures. Featuring contributors from seventeen countries, the essays offer informed insider perspectives that reflect the diversity of the subject and offer in-depth examinations of specific cultural and economic systems. Together, they conduct penetrating comparative analysis of musical theatre in different contexts as well as a survey of the transcultural spread of musicals.

Author : Carol Kimball
Publisher : Hal Leonard Corporation
Page : 603 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2006-12-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781617749971

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Song by Carol Kimball Pdf

Carol Kimball's comprehensive survey of art song literature has been the principal one-volume American source on the topic. Now back in print after an absence of several years this newly revised edition includes biographies and discussions of the work of

Author : David Farneth
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015048843489

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Kurt Weill by David Farneth Pdf

With 900 photographs, including stills, musical scores, playbills, the composer's notes and other original artwork, Kurt Weill is an addition to any theater or music lover's collection."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Ronald Sanders
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Composers
ISBN : 1879505061

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The Days Grow Short by Ronald Sanders Pdf

Offers coverage of Weill's life that is informed by a knowledge of the shifting cultural and political climates in which he worked.

Author : Bruce D. Mcclung
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2009-02-16
Category : Music
ISBN : 9780199725120

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Lady in the Dark by Bruce D. Mcclung Pdf

When Lady in the Dark opened on January 23, 1941, its many firsts immediately distinguished it as a new and unusual work. The curious directive to playwright Moss Hart to complete a play about psychoanalysis came from his own Freudian psychiatrist. For the first time since his brother George's death, Ira Gershwin returned to writing lyrics for the theater. And for ?migr? composer Kurt Weill, it was a crack at an opulent first-class production. Together Hart, Gershwin, and Weill (with a little help from the psychiatrist) produced one of the most innovative works in Broadway history. With a company of 101 and an astronomical budget, Lady in the Dark launched the career of a young nightclub performer named Danny Kaye and starred Gertrude Lawrence in the greatest triumph of her career. With standees at many performances, Lady in the Dark helped establish the practice of advance ticket sales on the Great White Way, while Paramount Pictures' bid for the film rights broke all records. New York Times drama critic Brooks Atkinson hailed the production as "splendid," anointed Kurt Weill 'the best writer of theatre music in the country,' and worshiped Gertrude Lawrence as "a goddess." Though Lady in the Dark was a smash-hit, it has never enjoyed a Broadway revival, and a certain mystique has grown up around its legendary original production. In this ground-breaking biography, bruce mcclung pieces together the musical's life story from sketches and drafts, production scripts, correspondence, photographs, costume and set designs, and thousands of clippings from the star's personal scrapbooks. He has interviewed eleven members of the original company to provide a one-of-a-kind glimpse into the backstage story. The result is a virtual ticket to opening night, the saga of how this musical play came to be, and the string of events that saved the experimental show at every turn. Although America was turned upside down by Pearl Harbor after the production was on the boards, Lady in the Dark played an important role for the war effort and rang up 777 performances in 12 cities. In what may be the most illuminating study of a single Broadway musical, this biography brings Lady in the Dark back to the spotlight and puts readers in the front row.

Author : David Savran
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Jazz
ISBN : 9780472116928

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Highbrow/lowdown by David Savran Pdf

The culture clash that permanently changed American theater

Author : W. Anthony Sheppard
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2001-02-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 0520924746

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Revealing Masks by W. Anthony Sheppard Pdf

W. Anthony Sheppard considers a wide-ranging constellation of important musical works in this fascinating exploration of ritualized performance in twentieth-century music. Revealing Masks uncovers the range of political, didactic, and aesthetic intents that inspired the creators of modernist music theater. Sheppard is especially interested in the use of the "exotic" in techniques of masking and stylization, identifying Japanese Noh, medieval Christian drama, and ancient Greek theater as the most prominent exotic models for the creation of "total theater." Drawing on an extraordinarily diverse—and in some instances, little-known—range of music theater pieces, Sheppard cites the work of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Honegger, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harry Partch, and Leonard Bernstein, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Madonna. Artists in literature, theater, and dance—such as William Butler Yeats, Paul Claudel, Bertolt Brecht, Isadora Duncan, Ida Rubenstein, and Edward Gordon Craig--also play a significant role in this study. Sheppard poses challenging questions that will interest readers beyond those in the field of music scholarship. For example, what is the effect on the audience and the performers of depersonalizing ritual elements? Does borrowing from foreign cultures inevitably amount to a kind of predatory appropriation? Revealing Masks shows that compositional concerns and cultural themes manifested in music theater are central to the history of twentieth-century Euro-American music, drama, and dance.