Weill - where to start?

[Guido]

There's so many operas... I know the Threepennyopera, and the Seven Deadly Sins... but not much else. How consistent in quality is he?

Street Scene a good place to go next?

[val]

To me, Weill's masterpiece is "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny", a remarkable opera not only because of the music's quality but also because of the text, the best libretto wrote by Berthold Brecht .

The old version with Lotte Lenya, directed by Bruckner-Ruggeberg was perfect.

I would also suggest a very beautiful cantata "Von Tod im Wald" and "Das Berliner Requiem" (there is a decent version directed by Herreweghe).

[Dax]

It sounds as though Happy End would be up your street. The best version I've heard by far is by Lotte Lenya. Some of the songs can be found on this collection:-
http://singersaintsrecords.blogspot.com/2008/02/lotte-lenya-sings-berlin-theatre-songs.html

The concerto for violin and wind is an earlier work, not written in his "populist" style, but remarkable nonetheless.
http://highponytail.blogspot.com/search/label/Weill

[Guido]

Cheers guys, thanks for these recommendations.

I just remembered that I have both of the symphonies too, the first is very nice and inventive, but the second is truly superb, a genuine masterpiece.

[mjwal]

Yes, the symphonies are necessary - the second even great, though neither of the recordings I have, de Waart and Alsop, quite convince me performance-wise. Mahagonny is the great operatic masterpiece - the recording with Lenya is unfortunately flawed because the vocal lines of her part were written higher, and Rüggeberg's special arrangement for Lenya spoils the musical significance of some scenes; she had a higher voice at the premiere in 1931. Read this, though, for a balanced discussion of the issues:
http://www.operawest.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=9
However, there's not much else on offer: the Capriccio Weill Edition version does not sound much better in the one excerpt I have of it and evinces less sense of the style. I don't know the English language LA production (discussed on that link) on DVD - it's said to be very good apart from being in English. I have a good German version on VHS but would have to set up the beamer to check out the production - later. There are above all quite a few scenes on the invaluable  YouTube - it seems to me that Martha Mödl as Begbick brilliantly captures the sinisterly triumphal venality of the figure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV271qqONeA        - wish I had seen one of the performances back then. All the recordings made in 1929-31 with Lenya and others are essential - there is a very good and cheap 2 CD Documents (Membran) issue with these (Dreigroschenoper, Mahagonny and Happy End) that also contains some excerpts from the American theatre pieces on the 2nd CD. The later Lenya recordings of Die sieben Todsünden,  excerpts from Happy End and other songs from American theatre works are essential for the style and feeling, despite the aging of the voice (CBS/SONY). Any recordings by Gisela May are full of style and character. The recordings of various works from the German period by David Atherton, including a lot of Happy End, now on a DG twofer, are excellent and idiomatic. Vom Tod im Wald is especially remarkable; Lenya herself in an interview preferred it of all her husband's works. And read the wonderful correspondence between the two, which changed midway from German to English; I have the English edition, because I can imagine the German original of the first half or so, and the English they preferred to write in later is delightful (the German edition gives a literal translation that misses the fun.)

[Tsaraslondon]

If you want to get to know some of the songs from the operas, I'd recpmmend both Teresa Stratas's discs on Nonesuch (if they're still available). Of course, Lotte Lenya is hors concours, but, by the time she made most of her recordings, she was pretty much growling in low keys, so it comes as a surprise to hear some of these songs in their original soprano keys.

Lenya herself passed on the palm to Stratas anyway, and in fact the first disc is a compendium of previously unpublished material that Lenya gave to Stratas. Highly recommended.

[The new erato]

If you're into lighter stuff (like operetta/muscals); I think Der Kuhhandel (available on Capriccio in a fine recording) is great fun.

[Wendell_E]

Lenya herself passed on the palm to Stratas anyway, and in fact the first disc is a compendium of previously unpublished material that Lenya gave to Stratas. Highly recommended.

I got those two Met/Levine 40th anniversary boxes, and am trying to watch/listen to them in chronological order.  So far I've only watched the DVDs of the Bartered Bride and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, both with Stratas, and they're even better than I remember.  For now, they're only available in the set, but if they ever release the Mahagonny individually, you might want to check it out.  The DVD of the Salzburg production, with Catherine Malfinato and Jerry Hadley, is also really good, and (unlike the Met version) in the orignal German.

[Jo498]

I have not checked DVDs but none of the CD recordings I have heard of Dreigroschenoper and Mahagonny is satisfactory. Maybe it is partly because these are theater pieces that do not work so well on recordings but even taking this into account, it's a shame how bad/flawed most are. Dreigroschenoper should have singing actors (who are lacking in Germany, except maybe for modern musicals). Many recordings mix opera singers (can sing but style is wrong) and actors (better style, although often exaggerated instead of understated, can't sing). Mahagonny needs more capable singers, so it's even worse.

mjwal up thread writes many true things.

Everyone who is interested in Weill should get the 1950s Lenya recordings but they are (sometimes deeply) flawed, mainly because she never was a great singer in the first place and the exaggerated style is rather different from the understated "cool" style we witness on the 1930 excerpts of Dreigroschenoper and other pieces. These 1930s historical recordings are really essential to show how the music and singing should go.

For what is probably the best Seven deadly sins get May/Kegel (with several of the more famous songs as fillers). I also have a weakness for Von Otter/Gardiner although this is too "philharmonic" and too cool.

The Atherton/London Sinfonietta anthology on DG is very well played but some of the singing is not convincing, still better than most others.

I never got the appeal of Stratas' recordings (I had two of her recital discs and gave them away). To me she seemed the worst of both worlds: Can't pronounce German and still sounds too much like an opera singer, despite Lenya's heiress and whatever.