#marc blitzenstein

[weaversweek]

"Mack the knife" - Bobby Darin

1959 Music: Kurt Weill; lyric: Bertolt Brecht, translated by Marc Blitzenstein

Number four in Let's Do It, my personal fifty favourite singles from 1954-76. Gets the Elf, a bonus 11th mark.

Die Dreigroschenoper is a tale of Macheath "Mackie" Messer, a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld. He's a complete anti-hero, saved from public execution by a deus ex machina. The show's overture is "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", sung in the production by a street singer before Mackie appears on stage.

The show - combining elements of opera, musical, and a jazz performance - and song were a huge success in 1920s Germany, where Weill and Brecht became heroes of the left. Their worldview is reflected in the piece: it portrays a capitalist scheme within the world of beggars, demonstrates the themes of estrangement and self-contradictory gesture.

Translated into English, The Threeppeny Opera flopped on Broadway in 1933. German culture fell out of fashion in the following years, and nobody tried again until an off-Broadway revival in 1954. For the opening number, Marc Blitzenstein took liberties with the text, removing some of Mackie's gorier crimes entirely, and adding a new verse to introduce the women in his play.

A hit show of 1954 will spawn hit singles, and Louis Armstrong's version is one of the strongest swing jazz versions. For this list, I'm going with Bobby Darin's interpretation, recorded for his 1958 standards album That's All. Darin had already featured "Mack the knife" in his live act, and approached the song with an extra bounce and verve, perhaps dulling some of the fear Mackie's meant to strike into our heart.

For me, the highlight is the increasing tone of the song. Darin goes up by a semitone in every verse, spiralling into excitement, racheting up the fear and the tension with every turn.

Bobby Darin had already established his credentials as a singer, "Splish splash" and "Dream lover" helped establish a lighter brand of rock and roll music, subsequently known as "bubblegum pop". Ill health ended his life in 1973.

[therealvbrown]

We got our opera scene assignments today, and I am SO EXCITED. Here's my first one:

Alexandra Giddens - "Make A Quiet Day (Rain Quartet)" from Regina, by Marc Blitzenstein. (In this recording, the woman in green.) 

I'm absolutely obsessed with it. I cannot WAIT to start rehearsals. I basically have it memorized already from listening to it so many times.

COME SEE THE OPERA.