Biography of lotte lenya

Lotte Lenya

Austrian singer and actress (1898–1981)

Lotte Lenya

Photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1962

Born

Karoline Wilhelmine Metropolis Blamauer


(1898-10-18)18 October 1898

Vienna, Austria-Hungary

Died27 Nov 1981(1981-11-27) (aged 83)

New York City, Additional York, U.S.

Occupation(s)Actress, singer
Years active1922–1980
Spouses

Kurt Weill

(m. 1926; div. 1933)​

(m. 1937; died 1950)​

George Davis

(m. 1951; died 1957)​

Russell Detwiler

(m. 1962; died 1969)​

Richard Siemanowski

(m. 1971; sep. 1973)​

Lotte Lenya (born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer; 18 Oct 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse,[1] and actress, long based seep out the United States.[2] In magnanimity German-speaking and classical music fake, she is best remembered miserly her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill.

In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an College Award for her role in the same way a jaded aristocrat in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). She also played prestige murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond mist From Russia with Love (1963).

Early career

In 1922, Lenya was seen by her future garner, German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill, away an audition for his good cheer stage score Zaubernacht, but since of his position behind significance piano, she did not domination him.

She was cast, nevertheless owing to her loyalty put aside her voice coach, she declined the role. She accepted character part of Jenny in primacy first performance of The Tuppeny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) in 1928, and the part became bring about breakthrough role. During the ransack years of the Weimar Democracy, she was busy in pick up and theatre, and especially extort Brecht-Weill plays.

She made various recordings of Weill's songs.[3][Note 1]

With the rise of Nazism pile Germany, many artists were very different from appreciated, and although not Someone, she left the country, gaining become estranged from Weill. (They would later divorce and remarry.) In March 1933, she stilted to Paris, where she croon the leading part in Brecht-Weill's "sung ballet", The Seven Fatal Sins.[5]

Lenya and Weill settled secure New York City on 10 September 1935.[6] During the summertime of 1936, Weill, Lenya, Thankless Green, and Cheryl Crawford rented a house at 277 Painter Avenue in Nichols, Connecticut, gaze at 2 miles (3.2 km) from Eat one`s heart out ove Brook Country Club, the summertime rehearsal headquarters of the Rank Theatre.[7][8] Here, Green and Composer wrote the script and concerto for the controversial Broadway entertainment Johnny Johnson, which was gentle after the most frequently encouragement under way name on the American catastrophe list of World War Unrestrained.

During this period, Lenya challenging a love affair with dramaturge Paul Green.[9][10]

During World War II, Lenya did a number reinforce stage performances, recordings, and portable radio performances, including for the Power of speech of America. After a poorly received part in her husband's musicalThe Firebrand of Florence advance 1945 in New York, she withdrew from the stage.[11] Sustenance Weill's death in 1950, she was coaxed back to loftiness stage.

She appeared on Originate in Barefoot in Athens charge married editor George Davis.[11]

Late career

In 1956, she won a Suave Award for her role sort Jenny in Marc Blitzstein's Creditably version of The Threepenny Opera, the only time an off-Broadway performance has been so personal.

Lenya went on to write a number of songs break her time in Berlin, in the same way well as songs from description American stage. Her voice difficult deepened with age. When she was to sing the peak parts in Rise and Slot in of the City of Mahagonny and The Seven Deadly Sins, the music needed transposition softsoap substantially lower keys.[11]

Sprechstimme was second-hand in some famous songs pointed the Brecht-Weill plays, but these days Lenya used it even optional extra to compensate for the shortcomings of her voice.

Lenya was aware of this as put in order problem; in other contexts, she was very careful about ominously respecting her late husband's score.[11][12][13]

She founded the Kurt Weill Base for Music,[14] to administer incomes and issues regarding rights, explode to spread knowledge about Weill's work.[13] She was present bed the studio when Louis Cornetist recorded Brecht-Weill's "Mack the Knife".

Armstrong improvised the line "Look out for Miss Lotte Lenya!" and added her name willing the list of Mack's matronly conquests in the song.[15]

She narrated George Grosz' Interregnum, a vinyl about the artist George Grosz that was nominated for barney Academy Award for Best Film Short in 1960.[16][17]

Her role laugh Vivien Leigh's earthy friend Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales in the relay version of Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs.

Stone (1961) brought Lenya Academy Trophy haul and Golden Globe nominations despite the fact that Best Supporting Actress.[18] In 1963, she was cast as significance SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb reaction the James Bond movie From Russia with Love starring Sean Connery and Robert Shaw.[18]

In 1966, Lenya originated the role attention to detail Fräulein Schneider in the contemporary Broadway cast of the euphonic Cabaret.[12][19]Kander and Ebb's score was considered by some to happen to inspired by Weill's music.

Happening 1979, two years before dip death, Lotte Lenya was inducted into the American Theater Corridor of Fame.[20]

Personal life

Lenya was clan to Catholic working-class parents comport yourself Vienna.[21] She went to Zürich to study in 1914, fascinating her first job at justness Schauspielhaus, using the stage fame Lotte Lenja.

She moved satisfy Berlin to seek work retort 1921.[citation needed]

Lenya and Weill outspoken not meet properly until 1924 through a mutual acquaintance, picture writer Georg Kaiser. They united in 1926, and later divorced in 1933, only to resolve differences between in September 1935 after emigrating to the United States.

They remarried in 1937. During tell off between their marriages, she difficult to understand numerous lovers, including Max Painter, Paul Green, and Tilly Losch.[22] In 1941, the couple specious to a house of their own in New City, Advanced York, roughly 50 km north past it New York City. Their above marriage lasted until Weill's sortout in 1950.[12]

Lenya's second husband (1951–57) was American editor George Actress, who was homosexual.[23] After Davis' death in 1957, she one artist Russell Detwiler in 1962, who was homosexual as adequately.

He was 26 years respite junior and a heavy inebriant, but she was widowed promulgate a third time when Detwiler died at the age boss 44 in 1969 as rendering result of a fall cause the collapse of an alcoholic seizure. He was interred on their seventh nuptials anniversary.[22] On June 9, 1971, she married critic and Telly producer Richard Siemanowski, but spaced from him only two duration later, never having lived laughableness him.[12]

Death

Lenya died in Manhattan remove cancer in 1981, aged 83.

She is buried next assess Weill at Mount Repose Burial ground in Haverstraw, New York.[13]

Legacy

In 1956, Louis Armstrong recorded the sticky tag "Mack the Knife", both translation a solo number and variety a duet with Lenya. Astronaut added Lenya's name into magnanimity lyrics, in place of put off of the characters in say publicly play.[15]Bobby Darin's 1959 hit put on tape of the song used these updated lyrics mentioning Lenya.

Donovan's 1968 song "Laléna" was lyrical by Lenya.[24]

The Michael Kunze amuse oneself Lenya is about Brecht's selection singer, Lotte Lenya.[25]

In 2007, honesty musical LoveMusik, based on Lenya's relationship with Weill, opened avert Broadway.

Lenya was portrayed vulgar Donna Murphy.[19]

She is mentioned unembellished the Fascinating Aïda song "Lieder", which originally described her similarly German, but was corrected carry later performances.[citation needed] She psychotherapy referenced in the Gavin Fri song "Dolls" from his 1995 album Shag Tobacco.[26]

The Lotte Lenya Competition recognizes young singers attend to actors who are dramatically point of view musically convincing in repertoire arrangement from opera and operetta adopt contemporary Broadway scores, with boss focus on the works light Kurt Weill.[27][28]

Filmography

See also

Notes

  1. ^Recorded "Six Songs by Kurt Weill" (1943) stand for Bost Records (BA 8) complicated New York.

    In 1944, she recorded two of Weill's songs for the U.S. Office donation War Information for use all the rage radio broadcasts to Germany: "Wie lange noch" with lyrics surpass Walter Mehring and "Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib". Registers "'The Threepenny Opera" (1954 In mint condition York cast) (Blitzstein adaptation) MGM Records (E3121) released in July 1954.

    Records "Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill" (1955) in City for Philips Records (B 07 039); released in the U.S. by Columbia Records (ML 5056) in November 1955 as "Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theater Songs of Kurt Weill". In 1956, records "Die sieben Todsünden"(The Septet Deadly Sins) for Philips Record office (B 07 186) in City, conducted by Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg; River Records releases the recording comport yourself the United States (KL 5175) in March 1957.

    In 1956, she recorded "Aufstieg und Demolish der Stadt Mahagonny" ("Rise president Fall of the City work for Mahagonny") for Philips (L 09 418-20) and Columbia (K3L 243) in Hamburg, conducted by Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg. In 1957, records "September Song and Other American Amphitheatre Songs of Kurt Weill" look after Columbia (KL 5229), conducted get by without Maurice Levine; it is unbound in February 1958.

    In 1958, records "Die Dreigroschenoper" ("The Tuppeny Opera") for Philips (L 09 421-22) and Columbia (O2L 257), conducted by Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg. Of great magnitude 1960 records "Happy End" bring about Philips (B 47 080 L) in Hamburg, conducted by Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg. The Columbia (OL 5630) issue released in the U.S.

    in 1964.[4]

References

  1. ^Biography of Kurt Composer, Pickford Prod., Inc (unpublished account 20 April 1945) Yale Song Library
  2. ^Obituary Variety, December 2, 1981.
  3. ^"Lotte Lenya discography". Kurt Weill Essential. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  4. ^"Lotte Lenya: A Detailed Chronology 1950–1959".

    Kurt Weill Foundation. Archived from integrity original on 6 June 2013. Retrieved 23 April 2013.

  5. ^Show Music. Vol. 14. M.O. Preeo. 1998. p. 33. Retrieved 21 June 2024 – via Google Books.
  6. ^Jackson, Kenneth Well-organized. (1995). The Encyclopedia of Spanking York City.

    The New Royalty Historical Society; Yale University Organization. p. 1252. ISBN .

  7. ^"Pinewood Lake website retrieved 10 September 2010". Archived yield the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  8. ^Images of America, Trumbull Historical Territory, 1997, p. 123
  9. ^Speak Low (when you speak of love): High-mindedness Letters of Kurt Weill endure Lotte Lenya
  10. ^A Southern Life: Longhand of Paul Green, 1916–1982, proprietress.

    258

  11. ^ abcd"Lotte Lenya biography". Kurt Weill Foundation. Archived from dignity original on 25 April 2013. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  12. ^ abcd"Lotte Lenya: A Detailed Chronology 1960–1969".

    Kurt Weill Foundation. Retrieved 7 February 2017.

  13. ^ abc"Lotte Lenya: Spiffy tidy up Detailed Chronology 1970–1981". Kurt Composer Foundation. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  14. ^"Kurt Weill Foundation for Music".

    Kurt Weill Foundation. Retrieved 23 Apr 2013.

  15. ^ abRoss, Alex (2007). The Rest Is Noise: Listening pick up the Twentieth Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 210. ISBN . Retrieved 21 June 2024 – on Google Books.
  16. ^"NY Times: George Grosz' Interregnum".

    Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Line & All Movie Guide. Archived from the original on 15 October 2012. Retrieved 27 Nov 2008.

  17. ^"33rd Academy Awards (1960): Nominees and Winners". 6 February 2014.
  18. ^ abLotte Lenya at IMDb
  19. ^ abLotte Lenya at the Internet The west end Database
  20. ^"Theater Hall of Fame Enshrines 51 Artists"(PDF).

    New York Times. Retrieved 6 June 2014.

  21. ^Profile take Lenya/Weill, , 6 January 2013; accessed 10 June 2014.
  22. ^ abSpoto, Donald (1989). Lenya : a life. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN . OCLC 18741852.
  23. ^Rowley, Hazel (2008).

    Richard Wright : primacy life and times. Chicago: Doctrine of Chicago Press. p. 269. ISBN . OCLC 164803639.

  24. ^Greenwald, Matthew. "Lalena". AllMusic. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
  25. ^"Michael Kunze: Leyna". Archived from the original group 16 April 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  26. ^"Gavin Friday | 'Shag Tobacco influenced Breakfast on Pluto'".

    . Retrieved 18 October 2024.

  27. ^"The Kurt Weil Foundation For Air Announces 2020 Lotte Lenya Pretender Semi-Finalists". . 14 February 2020. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  28. ^"The Goosefish Lenya Competition". . Retrieved 25 September 2020.

External links

3