BOOTLEG FILES 901: “The World of Kurt Weill” (1967 television special starring Lotte Lenya).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Most likely, there is a music rights clearance issue.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, one of the most intriguing series on American television was “NET Playhouse.” NET stood for National Educational Television and it served as the forerunner of the Public Broadcasting Service.
“NET Playhouse” primarily focused on adaptations of classic plays and stories that featured both established stars and up-and-coming actors – then-unknowns Dustin Hoffman, Martin Sheen and Jon Voight turned up in the series’ 1966 premiere season. The series rarely offered musical presentations, and one of those tuneful diversions included the 1967 hour-long production “The World of Kurt Weill” that celebrated the career of the German-born composer.
But unlike commercial television specials that included all-star musical casts, “The World of Kurt Weill” limited its music spotlight to a single talent, albeit one who was intimately familiar with Weill – his widow, Lotte Lenya. During the 1960s, Lenya was enjoying a career upswing thanks to her Oscar-nominated role in “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone,” her iconic villainous turn as Rosa Klebb in the 1963 James Bond epic “From Russia With Love,” and her Tony-nominated performance as Fräulein Schneider in the 1966 Broadway production of “Cabaret.” Lenya was part of the cast of the premiere “NET Playhouse” production, the 1966 version of Tennessee Williams’ “Ten Blocks on the Camino Real,” but this was the first time that she was front and center as the star of a television special.
Lenya was joined in “The World of Kurt Weill” by character actor George Voskovec, who mostly served to set up the musical numbers Lenya performed. A small group of back-up singers joined Lenya in a few of these numbers, but for the most part she was alone in her interpretations of the Weill songbook.
Lenya was 68 when “The World of Kurt Weill” was made. At that age, her voice had a raw, rough edge that reflected the extreme emotional moods that permeated the lyrics accompanying Weill’s inventive, culture-crossing music. Lenya didn’t just emote the tunes in a pop singer manner, but interpreted the compositions in a subtle manner that could invigorate or devastate, depending on what was being presented.
The special opens with two songs from “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.” The first is a bouncy take on “Alabama Song” with Lenya joined by four smartly dressed young women. Lenya comes across like a stylish den mother to these not-so-helpless ladies, and the twinkle in her eye when she declares “we must find the next whiskey bar” is enchanting.
From there, Lenya does a German-language version of “Havana Song” – there are no subtitles, but the gamut of moods that Lenya creates helps fill in the non-German audience with the song’s power.
The next two songs come from “The Threepenny Opera,” with Lenya giving a buoyant spin on “Mack the Knife” before unleashing a deeply moving rendition of “Pirate Jenny” as she becomes the character trying to escape her dreary existence by creating a wild revenge fantasy where she has power over vengeful brigands. When her Jenny imagines herself “stepping out into the morning…looking nice…with a ribbon in my hair,” you feel the pain of unloved, unwanted woman desperate for any slice of respect. The version in “The World of Kurt Weill” might be the best ever for this song.
With each song, Lenya weaves a mini-masterwork that beautifully defines the spirit of Weill’s creative genius. She joyfully tears through “Bilbao Song” backed by a jaunty band, seethes through the bitterness of “Surabaya Johnny,” moves serenely through the nostalgia of “September Song” without falling into a trap of treacly sentiment, and wondrously embraces the apprehensive wonder of “Lost in the Stars.”
If there is a possible drawback to “The World of Kurt Weill,” it would be that the special was shot in black-and-white – the production aired on February 24, 1967, but NET did not begin color broadcasting until June 1967. But Lenya was such a kinetic personality that she didn’t need color videography – her charisma and talent create their own hue of colors.
To date, there has been no home entertainment release of “The World of Kurt Weill.” A fine copy is on YouTube in an unauthorized upload. Perhaps someday a restored version can be made available on DVD and Blu-ray. Until then, here is the peerless Lotte Lenya for your viewing pleasure:
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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