I remember, maybe inaccurately, a verse by satirist Barry Humphries‘ character, Sir Les Patterson, that went like this, “Singing songs by Brecht needs the memory of an elephant / But what they lack in tune, they gain in relevance.” Brecht’s original 1930 radio-like recording of the Threepenny Opera is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature.

SHOW

The Phantom Dancer is your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1929 – 65 radio.

Mixed live-to-air by 1920s – 1930s singer and actor, Greg Poppleton, on radio 2SER 107.3 Sydney since 1985, The Phantom Dancer is re-broadcast on 23 radio stations of the Community Radio Network and online at 2ser.com.

You can hear lots of past Phantom Dancers, too, at 2ser.com.

PLAYLIST

The Brecht feature and a whole mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-50s radio. Read the full play list below.

Remember – the ALL VINYL FINYL HOUR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My98xT4mJyM

DREIGROSCHENOPER

With song lyrics by Kurt Weill and book by Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera (Dreigroschenoper), ‘a play with music’, was based on an Elisabeth Hauptmann translation of John Gay’s 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera. Hauptmann was Brecht’s girlfriend. Brecht did not credit her work.

RIP-OFF

1. Brecht claimed he did the translation, not Hauptmann
2. Brecht added four songs by French poet François Villon, without crediting Villon.
3. For these songs he used the translations by K. L. Ammer, without crediting Ammer.

When questioned by critics about these lapses, Brecht said he had, “a fundamental laxity in questions of literary property.”

STANDARDS

On this week’s Phantom Dancer we hear Lotte Lenya (married to Weill), Kurt Gerron, Erich Ponto, Willy Trenk-Trebitsch and Erika Helmke sing songs from Brecht’s play. the recordings are from an album of 78rpm records with radio-like announcements, made in Berlin in 1930.

Two of these songs you’ll now recognise as standards. They are, ‘Die Moritat von Mackie Messer’ (Mack the Knife) a jazz standard, and ‘Seeräuberjenny’ (Pirate Jenny) a cabaret staple.

CAPITALIST

Opening on 31 August 1928 at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, The Threepenny Opera, is a socialist critique on the capitalist world.

PETIT-BOURGEOIS

But despite its socialist credentials, Brecht’s ‘play with music’ was panned after its 1930 Soviet premier. Izvestia scowled: “It is high time that our theatres ceased playing homage to petit-bourgeois bad taste and instead turned to more relevant themes.” Oh, Sir Les!

IMPACT

Composer Weill’s artistic gave his intent for the music in a dense statement he issued in 1929, “Opera was founded as an aristocratic form of art. If the framework of opera is unable to withstand the impact of the age, then this framework must be destroyed. In the Dreigroschenoper, reconstruction was possible insofar as here we had a chance of starting from scratch.”

He also opined, “music cannot further the action of the play or create its background but achieves its proper value when it interrupts the action at the right moments.” This was much copied by subsequent Western doyens of agitprop-style worthiness.

BANKERS

The Threepenny Opera was slow to pick up audiences, but then it became a huge success in Berlin with 400 performances in its first run.

And ironically, the first run of Brecht’s socialist work was the place to be for Berlin’s monied classes. Socialites, bankers, industrialists and diplomats saw Brecht’s play as the place to be seen.

Productions elsewhere in the world in the 1930s were flops. Weill described a 1935 BBC broadcast of the play as totally misunderstanding what it was about. The 1930s Broadway production was described as dreary, though the music was praised, and closed after 12 performances.

SCORE

As you’ll hear, Weill’s music borrowed heavily from 1920s German jazz and dance band music, and this is its most interesting attribute.

Like Greg Poppleton’s 1920s-30s band, the original Lewis Ruth band in the 1930 album recording of The Threepenny Opera you’ll hear on this week’s Phantom Dancer were all multi-instrumentalists.

The seven-piece ensemble played 23 instruments.

VIDEO

Max Raabe introduces Bertolt Brecht…

25 SEPTEMBER PLAY LIST