Kurt Weill

Born in Dessau as the son of a cantor, Kurt Weill grew up in a household where operatic productions served as the chief source of leisure. During his teenage years, Albert Bing, who directed the Dessau Hoftheater, urged him to pursue musical training. While still establishing himself as a professional conductor, Weill briefly took composition lessons from Engelbert Humperdinck before participating in Ferruccio Busoni’s master classes in Berlin. Audience enthusiasm for his initial project with playwright Georg Kaiser, Der Protagonist (1926), prompted him to commit thereafter to greater accessibility in his compositions. He wed actress Lotte Lenya in 1926; he described her distinctive reedy and quavering vocal timbre as “the one I hear in my head when I am writing my songs.”

Weill launched a partnership with leftist playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht in 1927; their debut effort, Mahagonny-Songspiel (1927), introduced the number “Alabama Song,” which unexpectedly achieved minor pop status across Europe. Their subsequent production, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Three-Penny Opera, 1928), achieved enormous success, most notably through the song “Moritat” (“Mack the Knife”). Tension had already surfaced between the collaborators, and after finishing their ambitious “school opera” Der Jasager (1930), the pair separated. Brecht and Weill reconvened in Paris to produce Die Sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins) in 1934. Meanwhile Weill worked with Caspar Neher on the opera Die Bürgschaft (1931) and again with Georg Kaiser on Der Silbersee (1933); both scores drew antagonistic scrutiny from the rising Nazi movement.

Hitler’s ascent compelled Weill and Lenya to end their marriage and escape mainland Europe. Weill reached New York in 1935; after reuniting with Lenya he obtained citizenship and embraced American democracy with fervor, insisting his surname be spoken as “wile” rather than “vile.” A string of disappointing failures preceded his breakthrough collaboration with playwright Maxwell Anderson on the successful Knickerbocker Holiday (1938). In the twelve years remaining, Weill’s Broadway reputation expanded through further hits such as Lady in the Dark (1941), One Touch of Venus (1943), Love Life (1948), and Lost in the Stars (1949). He aspired to compose what he termed “the first American folk opera”; among his American scores, Street Scene (1946) came nearest, an “urban folk opera” drawn from Elmer Rice’s play and supplied with lyrics by Langston Hughes.

On April 3, 1950, Weill suffered a sudden massive coronary and expired in Lenya’s arms. His estate amounted to less than 1,000 dollars, leading Lenya to recognize that his role in musical theater had likewise been underappreciated. She engaged composer Marc Blitzstein to prepare an English-language adaptation of Die Dreigroschenoper; the off-Broadway premiere in 1954 ran for three years and ignited a Weill revival that persists today.