V35

WEDNESDAY | 07.03.2018

8:30 p.m., Film in the Kiez Kino Dessau

The Threepenny Opera (1931)
In German language without English subtitles

Director: G. W. Pabst
Screenplay: Léo Lania, Ladislaus Vajda, Béla Balázs
Camera: Fritz Arno Wagner
Editing: Hans Oser
Music: Kurt Weill

To mark the new production of the opera at the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau (see V18), it is worth seeing once again the very first film version, against which Weill and Brecht launched their famous Threepenny Court Case. It is especially in the songs, accompanied by the Lewis Ruth Band under Theo Mackeben, that we hear authentic interpretations of Brecht and Weill in which the composer's intentions are brilliantly realised, such as Carola Neher performance of the "Barbara Song" or Lotte Lenya rendering of "Pirate Jenny".

After the premiere, film scholar and critic Rudolf Arnheim wrote: "The dainty grace with which brutality and amorality are portrayed – this simply cannot be missed!"