The Threepenny Opera is a German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, contribution Hauptmann might have made to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work, The Threepenny Opera, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose, Gebrauchsmusik. He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He became a United States citizen on August 27, 1943.
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera. The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld from the musical named Macheath, the "Mack the Knife" of the title.
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a jaded aristocrat in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963).
Shadows and Fog is a 1991 American black-and-white comedy film directed by Woody Allen and based on his one-act play Death (1975). It stars Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, Kathy Bates, David Ogden Stiers, Jodie Foster, Lily Tomlin, John Cusack, Madonna, and Kenneth Mars. It was filmed on a 26,000-square-foot (2,400 m2) set at Kaufman Astoria Studios, which was the biggest set ever built in New York. It was also Allen's last film for Orion Pictures.
The Seven Deadly Sins is a satirical ballet chanté in seven scenes composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht in 1933 under a commission from Boris Kochno and Edward James. It was translated into English by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman and more recently by Michael Feingold. It was the last major collaboration between Weill and Brecht.
Happy End is a three-act musical comedy by Kurt Weill, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Bertolt Brecht which first opened in Berlin at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm on September 2, 1929. It closed after seven performances. In 1977 it premiered on Broadway, where it ran for 75 performances.
Mack the Knife is a 1989 romantic comedy musical film written and directed by Menahem Golan, a film adaptation of the 1928 Brecht/Weill musical The Threepenny Opera. The film stars Raúl Juliá as Captain Macheath, Richard Harris as Mr. Peachum, Julia Migenes as Jenny Diver, Julie Walters as Mrs. Peachum, and Roger Daltrey as the Street Singer. Brecht and Weill's score and libretto was adapted by Golan, Marc Blitzstein, and Dov Seltzer.
Imminent, Indeed is a gothic adaptation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. Written and directed by Bryn Manion with the assistance of Wendy Remington. Produced by the Creatives and the founding board members of the company of Aisling Arts. This adaptation focuses on Polly Peachum's side of the story and her world as it trips alongside that of Jenny Diver, a new Peachum brother, several comically nefarious underlings, and of course, the ever villainous Henry Macheath.
LoveMusik is a musical written by Alfred Uhry, using a selection of music by Kurt Weill. The story explores the romance and lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, based on Speak Low : The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited and translated by Lys Symonette and Kim H. Kowalke. Harold Prince had read Speak Low and suggested the idea for a musical to Uhry. Uhry and Prince worked on LoveMusik for four years to develop it into a stage work. The story spans over 25 years, from the first meeting of Lenya and Weill as struggling young artists, to their popularity in Europe and America, to Weill's death from a heart attack at age 50.
Mahagonny, ein Songspiel, or Mahagonny, a song-play, was written by composer Kurt Weill and dramatist Bertolt Brecht and first performed with that title and description in 1927. Elisabeth Hauptmann contributed the words to two of its songs. Just under half an hour in length, the work can be thought of as a staged or scenic cantata. By the end of 1929, however, Mahagonny had grown into a two-hour opera with the title Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, or Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. This was premiered in March 1930. Today the cantata and the opera are considered separately, the latter holding a place in the repertory, the former being an occasional piece staged in small theaters or programmed as an outgrowth of a song recital when resources permit. For this reason the shorter work is informally referred to as Das kleine Mahagonny, or The Little Mahagonny, or as Mahagonny-Songspiel.
Caspar Neher was an Austrian-German scenographer and librettist, known principally for his career-long working relationship with Bertolt Brecht.
"When the Ship Comes In" is a folk music song by Bob Dylan, released on his third album, The Times They Are a-Changin', in 1964.
"Pirate Jenny" is a well-known song from The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht. The English lyrics are by Marc Blitzstein. It is probably the second most famous song in the opera, after "Mack the Knife".
Captain Macheath is a fictional character who appears both in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728), its sequel Polly (1777), and roughly 150 years later in Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera (1928). Even though written "Macheath", the name is pronounced as if it were "MacHeath".
Carola Neher was a German actress and singer.
20th Century Blues is a live 1996 album by English singer Marianne Faithfull, in collaboration with pianist Paul Trueblood.
"What Keeps Mankind Alive?" is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama The Threepenny Opera which premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. The title refers to the central line from the finale of act 2, Denn wovon lebt der Mensch?. In the opera, the two stanzas of the strophic piece are sung by Macheath and Mrs Peachum and the final line is sung in fortissimo by the chorus.
Jenny Diver, née Mary Young was a notorious Irish pickpocket, one of the most famous of her day.
