2 American Singers Win Competition Honoring Composer Kurt Weill
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Two young American singers have won a musical theater competition honoring Kurt Weill, who composed "The Threepenny Opera."
The German Jewish musician (1900-1950) fled Nazi oppression in the 1935 and came to the U.S. He settled in New York, first living in New York City and later Rockland County, according to published reports.
Seven years earlier, Weill had written the iconic musical "The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper)" with Bertold Brecht. The play premiered in 1928, and is known for the standard "Mack the Knife" – popularized in later years by Bobby Darin.
In the U.S. in the 1930s and '40s, he went on to work with lyricist Maxwell Anderson on such productions as "Knickerbocker Holiday" and "Lost in the Stars," and Ira Gershwin in "Lady in the Dark." He also wrote the music for the opera "Street Scene," which featured lyrics by Langston Hughes.
Weill's wife, Lotte Lenya (1898-1981) – who starred in "The Threepenny Opera" and is name-dropped in "Mack the Knife" – worked to keep her husband's art alive decades after he was gone.
The Lotte Lenya Competition on Monday announced two top winners of the weekend competition upstate in Rochester: Jim Schubin of Plainsboro, New Jersey, and Brian Vu of Los Angeles. Seven more prizes were awarded for a total purse of $79,000.
Judges included soprano Teresa Stratas, whom Lenya anointed as the keeper of the Weill flame and taught the subtleties of his songs.
The competition is sponsored by the Flatiron District-based Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.
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