Seating will begin at 12:30pm with pre-performance remarks beginning at 1pm. Live streaming will be available. Again, please inform our technical director if you would like to Zoom.
And since I never pass up the opportunity to watch Raul Julia in performance, or in anything, here is a link to a filmed version of him singing and dancing Tango Ballad (with the gorgeous Julie Migenes) from Weill's Threepenny Opera.
The treasurer’s report would have to wait in the absence of our treasurer, Lori Walsh. Discussion of expenses ensued. Our usual library contribution hovers around $130; the cost of printing our annual program about $125.
Constance was delighted to announce she had found an organization eager for the oversupply of children’s books in the Hastings Library's used book shop: the Family Service Society of Yonkers. They run a summer camp program in Ossining and would like 50 books for levels from kindergarten to fifth grade. July 7 is the first day of camp. At the end of the camp season, each child will take home one of the books.
In Helen Barolini's memory we decided to read one of her books. We wondered if the Hastings Library hzx all of her books. To be checked out.
About our summer picnic. We decided that any Wednesday in July or the first two weeks of August would work. Christine, who has volunteered to host, will choose the date.
Carla’s presentation on Kurt Weill:
We learned that the Weill family records date back to the 14th century, when they took the name of the town in Germany where they lived. Kurt’s father became a cantor, breaking a long succession of rabbis in the Weill family. Kurt was born in 1900, the third of four children. His musical gifts showed at a young age and were encouraged by his parents. He attended school at the synagogue, but also took piano and organ lessons, and began composing at 10 years of age! He and his siblings put on plays and musical events at the synagogue, with Kurt playing the piano and directing the enterprises. By the early 1920’s he was recognized as one of the leading young classical composers in Germany.
In 1924 he met Lotte Lenya. Life was never the same! We heard selections from their letters to each other, beginning with the passionate and ardent, and moving through a cooler tone, when their relationship was strained. They married, the separated, they divorced, and finally, they remarried.
Weill’s work includes music for cantatas, operas, requiems, plays with music and music for radio and movies. He collaborated with Berthold Brecht, Maxwell Anderson, Alan Jay Lerner, Ira Gershwin and others. Several of his songs live on outside of the theater: ‟September Song,” ‟ My Foolish Heart,” ‟My Ship” and ‟Mac the Knife.”
In addition to writing the music, Weill cast, directed, produced, and generally ran the show. Stress gave him heart incidents. He died at 50 years of age in 1950. Lenya married several times after his death, but she made it her mission to perform his works and burnish his memory.
After this introduction, we were ready to stage The Threepenny Opera, perhaps Weill’s most famous work. Carla’s summary explained the turf war between the two rival parties. The daughter (Polly) on one side is marrying the biggest crook on the other (Mac). Polly’s father, Beggar Boss Peachum plans to capture and hang Mac, but amid lots of complications, no hanging, but yes, that famous song. Oh, and lots of satire about poverty and crime.
We heard songs leading to the scenes we performed with aplomb! And no gallows.
The second play we explored was Lost in the Stars, from the novel Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton. Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill adapted it for the stage, with Weill writing the songs. Set in South Africa, it was produced in 1949. The main character, an African minister, seeks his son, who has gone off to Johannesburg. Sadly, in Johannesburg, the young man kills a man during the course of a robbery. His victim turns out to be the son of the white man who has befriended his father and the congregation in the village. After a trial, the minister’s son is to be hanged.
The two fathers, who each have lost a son, speak together, conveying hope for the future.
Two very different theater pieces, yet each brings social conditions of the times to the audience.
I forgot to mention that between the two plays, we adjourned to Carol’s living room, as the driveway project next door clattered so loudly!
And here endeth our season of drama on the Hudson. Thank you, Carla.
Respectfully submitted,
Laura Rice
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