Lotte Lenya "A star who is allowed to do everything"

Description

Frankfurt in October 1930, exactly 90 years ago, the second performance of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's opera "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" is disrupted by National Socialists. They forced their way into the opera with 150 men, making noise, jeering and shouting, while chants of "Germany awake" rang out in front of the opera. Stink bombs are used against the Mahagonny audience and fireworks are set off. This is not the first time the Nazis have been enraged by an opera.

There were already protests against the 'cultural Bolsheviks' Brecht and Weill at the premiere in March of the same year. The story of the "golden city of Mahagonny" prompted the outraged scandalmongers to incite hatred and death threats: "Your days are probably as numbered as those of your scum town Mahagonny!" The vocal protagonist of the play is called Lotte Lenya. She is Weill's wife at the time and plays the role of Jenny. Lotte Lenya, born on 18 October 1898 in Linzer Straße 87 in Vienna-Penzing, with her special voice and high recognition value.

Rope and ballet dancer, actress and singer, muse, estate manager and Bond villan - a woman who is allowed to do everything and has become a world star. Her velvety, yet somewhat raw and vibrant timbre immediately springs to mind when you think of the Meckie Messer moritat. Lenya's voice is an inspiration and an unattainable ideal for Weill's works. When the smoke clears from the Mahagonny People and the Alabama Song, Lenya as the pirate Jenny in The Threepenny Opera is then a role model for The Doors, Ute Lemper, David Bowie, Hildegard Knef, Eleni Lydia Stamellou, Sting or Teresa Stratas.