Recommended Threepenny Opera Recording?- Page 2

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 8/29/13 at 1:57pm

I still wish they would have recorded the Roundabout production. How long ago was that? Maybe we're due for another revival soon?

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 8/29/13 at 3:24pm

^ I hope not. It was the Roundabout trying to make Cabaret lightning strike twice.

[jv92]

Posted: 8/29/13 at 5:30pm

I should have also said that I am not a THREEPENNY OPERA authority. I've heard recordings, but not all of them, and I'm fondest of the 1954 version. Maybe it's because it was the first one I heard?

Look to other people who are more knowledgable about the piece for better advice. I'm more partial to Weill's work once he came to America, anyway.

[Shamrayev]

Posted: 12/16/13 at 5:32pm

Adding on to this as a huge Weill fan.

My favorite Threepenny is actually a German recording made by the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt.

http://www.amazon.com/Threepenny-Opera-Kurt-Weill/dp/B00001R3MQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387232796&sr=8-1&keywords=threepenny+hk

Yes, it's in German, but the orchestration is the most faithful to the original, biting sound that I've heard yet. Between the sharp orchestra, the harsh voices, and the overall high-quality musicianship, I feel like it really captures the absurdity that's truly at the heart of Threepenny (which is sorely lacking from the incredibly heavy and dull 1976 recording, in my opinion).

HK Gruber and Max Raabe are the reason that this works. They also collaborated on a fabulous recording of some of Weill's dance band music with Raabe's Palast Orchester. Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Charming-Weill-Palast-Orchester-Raabe/dp/B00138QH96/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387233087&sr=8-1&keywords=charming+weill

Enjoy! Happy Weill-ing!

[Pawnee Bill]

Posted: 12/16/13 at 9:15pm

The 1954 Theatre de Lys recording was made a bit late in the run, so it's not exactly the "original cast"--the Mr. Peachum is a replacement. Still, this performance has a theatricality that no other Threepenny cast album has, perhaps because its performers are more from the Broadway musical world than from the spoken theatre. They're not actors, but singing actors. The Polly was to play the heroine of The Most Happy Fella, and the Lucy was appear prominently in Fiddler on the Roof and Mame. The Macheath was a Pal Joey type. And so on. And of course it has Lenya as well. This is the disc that popularized this show in America. I'm amazed that so few people have recommended it.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/16/13 at 10:54pm

The 1976 one is your best bet. HOWEVER...

The 1954 Off Broadway version is a masterpiece--a labor of love by a great contemporary American composer/lyricist that accomplished something remarkable: Marc Blitzstein brought Brecht and Weill to a broad American audience, first by a small Off Broadway production in Greenwhich Village, which was at the time, still very much a burgeoning center for the American avant garde. (Now Christopher Street is all condos and chain stores, about which Brecht and Weill would have a lot to say.)

And then by that most American of phenomenon: a hit song.

It is fashionable to criticize the 1954 Blitzstein version for "watering down" Brecht and somehow softening his message, which is ironic because Blitzstein thought he was actually doing exactly what Brecht and Weill had aspired to. It was transgressive, it was challenging, it was alienating. It was what Brechtian was, for many people, for many years.

But in time the production became juts another Greenwich Village tourist experience, like the Fantasticks or Washington Square. It didn't help that Blitzstein's version of the "Moritat" got jazzed up and swing and become a hot for Louis Arsmtrong and Bobby Darin and Ella Fitzgerald. So other translators came along and out-Brechted Marc Blitzstein.

But for its day, it was revolutionary, which, in the end, is what Brecht and Weill wanted. It ran for over six years and was praised by critics and Brecht himself, who wrote to Blitzstein "“Ich halte Ihre Bearbeitung der Dreigroschenoper für grossartig und schätze Sie sehr.” [I consider your adaptation of Threepenny magnificent and think highly of you.]

And, in addition to Lotte Lenya, it had Bea Arthur and Charlotte Rae and Paul Dooley and John Astin and, at various times during the six years, actors like Jane Connell and Ed Asner and Estelle Parsons and Jerry Stiller and Paul Dooley.

Updated On: 12/16/13 at 10:54 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/16/13 at 10:58pm

And if the ultimate Brechtian technique is the Verfremdungseffekt, the infamous "Alienation Effect," this version of "Mack the Knife" is possibly the MOST alienating of all.


Ann-Margret: 'Mack the Knife'

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/16/13 at 11:00pm

And in case you think you don't understand what the lyrics mean, Pearl Bailey and Dinah Shore sing it and simultaneously explicate it for you.



Pearl Bailey and Dinah Shore: 'Mack the Knife'

[trentsketch]

Posted: 12/16/13 at 11:01pm

I'm partial to the 1954 Off-Broadway recording just because of Bea Arthur's Barbara Song. Most productions don't give Lucy that song and, even more telling, most productions leave that as a faster high soprano song. Arthur got to milk it for all it was worth in her wonderful tenor range.

Updated On: 12/16/13 at 11:01 PM

Posted: 12/16/13 at 11:09pm

I love the 1976 recording, but that is more based on familiarity than quality. It was the first recording of the show I owned and I'm most familiar with its takes on the songs.

That being said, the 1954 recording is much more vibrant, even though it is in Mono. The performances are much stronger and I actually prefer the Blitzstein translations, cleaned up as they are for the album, even though the later translations are more accurate to Brecht's original lyrics. The less accurate lyrics pack more of a punch in English and often flow better while getting across very much the same point.

As others have said, it's also advisable to get a German recording, to hear the original text sung unaltered.