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Chris
07-13-2004, 10:02 PM
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Just take a moment and remember this legend...Lotta Lenya.
Austrian-born singing actress Lotte Lenya is remembered for roles on stages and films in Germany and the United States (including Jenny in Die Dreigroschenoper and the Fräulein Schneider in Cabaret), as well as for her interpretations of the songs of her husband Kurt Weill. Born in 1898, she began training as a dancer in Switzerland, but after some acting lessons she moved to Berlin to pursue an acting career. She was introduced to Weill there in 1924, and two years later they were married.

Her first artistic collaboration with Weill was in his 1928 scenic cantata Mahagonny Songspiel, but she won international recognition the following year playing Jenny in Weill's and Bertold Brecht's Die Dreigroschenoper.

Weill wrote many more of his roles with her in mind, and she played in the original productions of the operas Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and Die sieben Todsünden before they left Europe to escape Hitler in 1935.

In the years leading up to their departure their relations became increasingly strained, and they divorced in 1933. By the time of their emigration, however, they had reconciled, and once in the United States they remarried. Lenya continued to act in her husband’s musicals, including The Eternal Road and Firebrand of Florence, and after he died in 1950 she actively promoted his music on stage and screen in both America and Europe. Her career flourished until her death in 1981.

In the 1950s she made a number of historic recordings of Weill’s music with Columbia Masterworks, which have been reissued by Sony Classical, including the complete Die Dreigroschenoper (MK 42637), the complete Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (M2K 37874), Die sieben Todsünden and Berlin theatre songs (MHK 63222), and an album of American theatre songs (MHK 60647). She also appeared on the original cast recording of Cabaret, recently reissued as part of Sony’s Broadway Masterworks series (MHK 60533).

Breine
07-13-2004, 10:30 PM
Did she die recently?

Chris
07-13-2004, 10:43 PM
Lotta Lenya died in 1981. (81 years old).

Del Murder
07-14-2004, 01:34 AM
Oops, I thought this was a Wheezey thread.