by dan pine
staff writer
He was the German-born son of a cantor, a Nazi scapegoat for the “degenerate art” movement and, finally, the toast of Broadway. Kurt Weill packed a lot into his 50 years, and over time his music has always had “pretty teeth, dear.”
Just ask Lenore Naxon. The director of the Friend Center at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco is a lifelong Weill fan. Now she’s mounting the first “Kurt Weill Fest” at the JCC — three events over four weeks, all celebrating the life and work of the late Jewish composer.
The festival kicks off Sunday, Oct. 8, with a performance by German cabaret singer Jutta Czurda. That’s followed by a screening of “September Songs,” a 1995 concert film featuring artists such as Elvis Costello and Lou Reed performing Weill’s music. The fest wraps up Nov. 2 with an all-Weill concert by opera legend Regina Resnik.
The fest follows last year’s “Freud Fest,” which examined the life and work of Sigmund Freud. This year’s fest, however, is a lot more tuneful.
“He could do it all,” says Naxon of Weill. “If you look at his collaborators, from [Bertolt] Brecht to Ira Gershwin to Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill is the heart and soul of the American theatrical scene.”
Not to mention the German theatrical scene of the 1920s and early ’30s. Though Weill was hounded out of his native land with the rise of the Third Reich, modern Germany has reclaimed him as an artistic hero.
The German Consulate General and the Goethe-Institut San Francisco (a German cultural center) are co-sponsors of the JCC event.
“Looking at Kurt Weill, you cannot separate his life and his work from history,” says Czurda. “I feel this inner obligation as a German. My parents and grandparents were on the side of the perpetrators.”
Czurda has toured the world with her show, consisting of the music of Weill in exile. Most of the songs are in French and English.
“He was able to adapt,” adds Czurda. “Two years in Paris and 15 in the U.S., he adopted the idiom of the [new] country. Here he threw himself into American music. He not only wanted to be a successful Broadway composer, but he wanted to be an American.”
He did not begin life that way. Born in Dessau, Germany, Weill’s earliest works were for the synagogue. Though he became a refined composer, he never lost his love of Jewish music (he wrote several Jewish choral pieces, and his arrangement of the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” is still performed).
Though he studied with classical greats, by age 20 Weill had settled on a career in musical theater. He had already composed several musicals by the time he first collaborated with playwright Brecht. Together the pair wrote “The Threepenny Opera,” “Mahagonny” and other classics of the era.
With the rise of Nazism, Weill’s music was lumped together with others forms of so-called “degenerate art,” expressing negativity rather than a positive outlook. By 1933 Weill could read the tea leaves: It was time to leave Germany for good.
“As he became more outspoken in his anti-Nazi sentiments, he became less popular,” notes Michael Philip Davis, an operatic tenor who performs with Regina Resnik (she’s also his mom). “Weill got tipped off that the Gestapo was looking for him — he drove to the border and walked over to France.”
In 1935, after two years in Paris, he moved to America, where he remained for the rest of his life. He refused to speak German ever again.
Weill was an immediate sensation in the States. He teamed up with greats like Moss Hart, S.J. Perelman, Langston Hughes and Ira Gershwin, turning out classic after classic. He even wrote a Jewish-themed musical, “The Eternal Road.”
Weill died of a heart attack in 1950. His widow, Lotte Lenya, devoted much of the rest of her life to preserving his legacy.
Germans born after the war, like Czurda, have led the Weill revival there. “My generation asked the questions,” she says. “We have tried to deal with our parents’ guilt and our responsibility. So Kurt Weill for me has this deep meaning of looking at my history.”
Czurda sings Weill in the smoky cabaret style so many have come to expect — a relatively new invention initiated by Lenya.
“Lenya’s voice kept dropping, and to accommodate, she shifted all the music down,” says Davis. “She said once her voice was one octave below laryngitis.”
Resnik sings Weill in the classical style for which he wrote.
Naxon reports that interest in the Kurt Weill Fest is running high. “This transcends a variety of different audiences,” she says. “We hope we don’t run out of seats.”
While that might be good for the box office, it says more about the esteem in which Weill’s music is held today. Notes Davis, “Kurt Weill’s music is as current today as when it was written. His main themes are the plight of the poor, moral and social injustice and war. Those political and moral statements stand the test of time.”
“Lost in the Stars –– A Kurt Weill Cabaret” with Jutta Czurda takes place 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8, at the JCCSF’s Kanbar Hall, 3200 California St., S.F. Tickets: $20-$24.
“September Songs –– The Music of Kurt Weill” screens 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 17, also at Kanbar Hall. Admission is free. Information: (415) 292-1233 or online at www.jccsf.com.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California