The Shark bears his teeth still in the face

For all those for whom the action is just not quite present: The "Threepenny Opera", inspired by John Gay's "Beggar's Opera" in 1728, playing in the London underworld milieu of the 18th century. It tells the love story between the crime boss Macheath (Mack the Knife) and Polly, Jenny's betrayal of Mackie, whose arrest, conviction and - eventually you will find yourself on stage and not in real life - his pardon and even a happy ending with all harassment. The honorable citizen is a robber, the robber an honorary man.

Both Brecht's libretto and Weill's music celebrated here new ways: Brecht's language uncanny instinct moves across all language barriers, criminal jargon and Luther German, home-style language clichés and Anglicisms, sometimes with irony, sometimes meant very seriously, contrast each other. That conclusion is Weill's music to nothing after: quotes from the popular music and of the Protestant chorale, ballad, ballad, jazz, contemporary dance music, among other things form in his music a whole new style and this is the amazing thing: The two congenial artists have a self- created closed artworks, where everything is just right, which has not put on dust until today and its influence in music and literature is still alive and kicking.

This recording of the songs from The Threepenny Opera of 1930, partly with the original cast of the premiere, one of the most successful ever, even the cast list can cluck a tongue: Kurt Gerron, Erika Helmke, Willy Trenk-Trebitsch, Erich Ponto, finally, the incomparable Lotte Lenya ("Lenya" she enrolled until 1935) ... The recording quality is decent when you consider the age of the original tapes.

Considers the occupation, which promise the big names: Kurt Gerron as emcee shines through captivating perfidy, Erich Ponto virtuoso Peachum no less; and as Lotte Lenya, the Jenny and Polly sings - unbelievable! If only not the stereotype of the "holy whore" so licked would ...

Each song is introduced by a brief comment in a prime Epic Theatre tradition; these discharges speaks consistently Kurt Gerron with the gesture of ironic, uninvolved chronicler. The whole recording sounds so lively, fresh and new that one can hardly believe you hear a studio recording.

While there is an almost identical shot of Threepenny Opera with a slightly different order of songs, numerous encores very special and a booklet in a class ("The Threepenny Opera / Berlin 1930", can be found here with the keywords "Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht"), But even with this CD are Weill fans and those who want to it, well served.

And here's additions: Lotte Lenya sings the "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" and the "Bilbao Song", and Brecht himself sings the "Mack the Knife" and the "Ballad of the insufficiency of human endeavor" by type of Bänkelsängers - he can not sing, but the non-singing-Can will be able finally ... "because in this life, man is not bad enough."