The Lotte Lenya Album is nothing more or less than a two-fer repackaging of the single LPs Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill and September Song and Other American Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill. Thus, the first disc finds Lenya in Germany in 1955, singing (mostly in German) songs composed by Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht from their stage works Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), Happy End, and Das Berliner Requiem ...
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The Lotte Lenya Album is nothing more or less than a two-fer repackaging of the single LPs Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill and September Song and Other American Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill. Thus, the first disc finds Lenya in Germany in 1955, singing (mostly in German) songs composed by Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht from their stage works Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), Happy End, and Das Berliner Requiem (Berlin Requiem), plus two selections from Der Silbersee (The Silverlake) with words by George Kaiser, while the second disc finds her in the U.S. in 1957, singing in English songs from Weill's Broadway musicals Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, The Firebrand of Florence, Street Scene, Love Life, and Lost in the Stars. Lenya always disputed the notion that there were two Weills, the Berlin Weill and the Broadway Weill, but she ended up reinforcing that argument with these two LPs, and juxtaposing one with the other in this package does not disprove it. Lenya was the definitive interpreter of the Brecht/Weill catalog, of course, and when she came to make the recordings here she had been singing (and recording) songs like "Seeräuberjenny" ("Pirate Jenny") and "Surabaya-Johnny" for more than a quarter-century. It's no surprise that she sounds assured on the first disc, which uses the original orchestrations for small jazz band conducted by Roger Bean. It's a different story with the Broadway tunes that make up the second disc, however, as Maurice Levine conducts a string orchestra on songs for which other singers have done memorable treatments, including "September Song," "Saga of Jenny," "Speak Low," and "Lost in the Stars." With her limited range and German-accented English, Lenya is not the best interpreter of this material, and she does better with the less familiar songs, such as "Sing Me Not a Ballad," which actually was written for her to sing in the unsuccessful operetta The Firebrand of Florence. Still, there is no gainsaying her claim to singing practically anything in the Weill catalog. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
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Add this copy of The Lotte Lenya Album: Lotte Lenya Sings Theater Songs to cart. $2.59, good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1987 by Sony Music Entertain.
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