Say Something Interesting about "The Threepenny Opera"

I like that and the army song!

I saw it with a whole bunch of classical singers from my pro church choir and most of them didn't like it, partially because of the sheer amount of screaming and partially because they were doing an updated translation and were thrown by the anachronisms. I thought it was fucking stellar.

Brecht/Weill's original version was somewhat but not exactly like this popped-up American version. Dude did the best adaptation work in history, to fancy it up for the Great White Way and keep it gully as fuck at the same time. Scott what's-his-face.

OFF-Broadway, ahem.

Also, since I saw it last night, Lars Von Trier claims Dogville is based on Pirate Jenny .

Secret favorite song from 3P0 was always "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency," pref. sung in German.

It stars Ute Lemper though, which someone above was saying how they didn't like her (though I don't think they were talking about this version).

BTW, I also liked the NY Shakespeare version with Julia, in part because that translation sings more like German than the original English version.

Nina Simone's rage was a beautiful thing.

There was an unsuccessful American production in the 30s, not Blitztein's translation. In the Brandeis U. production, and I would not shit you: Paul Lynde.

I've actually seen Charlotte Rae do musical theater, and she's quite good.

Blitzstein is a fascinating figure, though "Cradle" and the 3PO translation were his only major successes. At his death, he was writing a commissioned opera about Sacco & Vanzetti, possibly for the Met. Beaten to death while cruising sailors, I believe. (Biography in storage, or this would be longer.) I wish the Tim Robbins' "Cradle" hadn't been the what-passes-for-left-in-Hollywood version of an underdog sports-team movie.

B/W's hastily thrown together follow-up, "Happy End," was a mess as a show (plot not unlike "Guys and Dolls," strangely), but had amazing songs: "Bilbao Song," "Mandelay Song," "Surabaya Johnny." Good Lenya versions, duh. I am also fond of an album from last year by Eastside Sinfonetta, "Don't Be Afraid," including these and other lesser-known
B/W material and a couple of the B/Eisler "Hollywood Elegies." Label site here..

In the credits to the Pabst film, Brecht is called "Bert," and Weill loses an L.

Two questions:

Does Nina Simone actually change words, or does it just seem that way because we know the context? I just don't remember.

Given the well-deserved ups to Dagmar Krause, can anyone vouch for the new Art Bears box?

Check out the recent version by the Ensemble Modern (I think it's on RCA), with Max Raabe as MacHeath and Nina Hagen as Mrs. Peachum. It's terrific.

The albums are the albums, of course - sound is improved, but not dramatically to my ears (I thought the original CDs didn't sound bad). There is a lot of bonus stuff (organized strangely on a 2-CD set, a single cardboard-sleeve CD, and a 3-inch mini-CD) to get through. I've heard it all once, but not much made a big impression. I need to listen again, especially all the live stuff in there.

About Dagmar, the booklet inside made it seem to me as if she wasn't that thrilled with performing with Art Bears - she doesn't have any quotes in the book, and they talk about how they had to work with her manager a lot just to get her to appear on the records.

Blitzstein, of course, idealized Brecht. Whatever the faults of his translation, his main motivation was to bring his hero to a wider audience. By which I mean, the watering down had an air nobility.

I actually think the sound is notably, if not drastically improved. The snare drum on 'The Winter Wheel', for instance, finally sounds as it once did on vinyl. On the double CD remix project, there are some okay tracks, a couple of outstanding ones (Utsonomiya & Dimuzio in particular), but sadly it doesn't make for a very coherent listening experience overall. (full disclosure: I contributed a track.) Art Bears need their own thread.

this review of the Ensemble Modern version of Threepenny makes it sound fantastic!

But the greatest miscasting has to be Nina Hagen as Mrs. Celia Peachum. The woman can't sing! She croaks, squeaks, howls, and whines her way through the role, nearly always off-key and most horrid. What were the producers thinking of?

Just ordered it. My copy is the Bulgarian Choir and Symphony Orchestra edition on Koch, always been meaning to order another copy, might spring for the one dleone picked out as well.

Ok, fresh off the presses. This mini-CD is in fact the "Coda to Man & Boy", originally available with rer subscription copies of TWAIIT. It sounds like the same as track 11 on the bonus CD beginning with Bob Drake "and the comedy bears". So, they sent me a mini-replica of that EP I guess. Good for me.

BTW, that's completely awesome you got to participate in this. Er, who are you?

ah, I bet this is what'll replace the 5" disc bonus CD in future editions of the box. (my guess is the non-AB sample in the Oswald piece is unlicensed, forcing a limited edition.)

>BTW, that's completely awesome you got to participate in this.

spent the first three weeks of the project just listening to Dagmar's vocals soloed. unbelievable. then three weeks studying the construction of the multitracks. sometimes learning how things were made diffuses the power but it's the opposite in this case. my track's 1.14.

I'm absolutely obsessed with this right now, just so you know.

and i love the fact dleone loves Pirate Jenny. A man of consistently good taste.

Stan Ridgway did a wonderful cover of "The Cannon Song".

This was the best play I was ever in.

It makes me want to direct and cover the whole fucking thing. Can't believe I only recently heard it completely. What have I been doing???!1

where in england can i see a production any time soonish?

I like "then one night there's a scream in the night"

search: Dagmar Krause's Tank Battles and Agnes Bernelle's Fathers Lying Dead on the Ironing Board

My parents had a giant poster of Raul Julia in Threepenny Opera that was a close-up of his face. It was in the basement, right at the bottom of the stairs, and as a child, I was terrified of it.

I like "then one night there's a scream in the night"
yessssssss

In Chronicles vol. 1, Dylan paints himself as massively obsessed with Threepenny Opera in the early 60s, attending multiple performances, and with Pirate Jenny as instrumental in his learning how to write songs.

There's a movie called September Songs with Burroughs doing What Keeps Mankind Alive and Nick Cave doing Mack the Knife, not to mention a jaw dropping Furchte dich Nicht by Mary Margaret O'Hara (sadly no link) and PJ Harvey doing Ballad of the Soldier's Wife.

Any of you musical types fancy getting involved in this?:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6839171497

Did anyone mention upthread that they had to cut a few numbers from the film because Fritz Rasp couldn't sing?

Stupid thread title.

But golly that Marc Blitztein translation. Right now I have the sequence in my head that goes, "All I'm asking isn't much/ Once instead of all this sadness/ From a man, a little gladness/ Is that asking very much?/ Is that asking such a much?"

I realized recently how similar the Brechtian division of singing into three modes resonates with the Aeschylean tripartite concept of singing/acting.

It's almost like how the Germans want to claim Shakespeare as their own and say that he was meant for German translation (have you heard/read about this?) - I hear the Blitztein translation and some of the idiomatic English and devices used makes it seem so naturally, inevitably English.

Adjusted for inflation, a 2009 production would be called "The Thirtyeightpenny Opera."

a while back i tried to get a bunch of local bands to cover songs from threepenny op. never reaaly took off though sadly.

There was that bizarre version of "Mack the Knife" by Billy MacKenzie on the Frank Chickens' Karaoke show, back in the day.