Brecht And Weill

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 9

Brecht And Weill

Something of a Berthold Brecht-Kurt Weill vogue is reported in Europe at present. The operas, musicals and plays are reappearing in London and on the Continent and Weill’s famous widow, Lotte Lenya, has even followed the army as “Mother Courage” at the Ruhr Festival. Two different 12in disc versions of ‘The Threepenny Opera,” both in the English version by Marc Blitzstein, have turned up. On MGM mono MC.6162 (39s 6d) is a New York cast version with Lotte Lenya as Jenny and Scott Merrill as Mack the Knife, and on RCA Victor mono L0C.1086 (39s 6d) is the film soundtrack with Martha Schiamme, George Irving and Sammy Davis, jun., singing. The stage version offers more songs and its actors are more familiar with their nodes and with the significance of them. It is more in keeping with the biting and sour lyrical character of the work. The Hollywood version has the same musical director but a very lessened impact. It seems more of a romantic adventure than a story about proles. The teeth have been pulled and slick bourgeois denture job slipped in.