Teresa Stratas - The Unknown Kurt Weill

I've been a bug admirer of Weill's work - particularly his collaborations with Brecht - for years. His songs tread the thin, tricky line between classical and cabaret more daringly that most. Brecht's collaborations with Hanns Eisler, for example, are closer to the theatrical than are Weill's. In my humble opinion, Stratas walks this `razor's edge' very nimbly on this recording - her voice is obviously a finely trained instrument, but she is also able of conveying a lot of feeling and emotion with these lyrics. Her choice - or perhaps the producer's - of accompanying here with only a piano is a good one. Woitach does a fine job - and the recording itself is crystal-clear.

My only real complaint with the cd version of this album is the size of the type in the liner notes - Nonesuch could have easily `sprung' for a lengthier booklet, to allow us `old fogies' the opportunity to read it without a magnifier, and also to include the lyrics and translations. I can't recall for certain if the lp version offered the lyrics, but I believe it did. At any rate, these complaints are indeed small ones - this is a timeless, beautiful recording, and one that any fan of Weill's work should at least hear.


Leave Weill enough alone ...   July 8, 2000
10 out of 29 found this review helpful

I don't know just what Lotte Lenya said on her deathbed, but I personally feel that other singers carry the torch for Kurt Weill as well or better than Teresa Stratas. Of all my Weill albums, this one gives me the least pleasure. The German is bad, the interpretations are shrill and forced. Some of the tracks are almost unlistenable. Was Teresa Stratas simply the first world class singer to rediscover this body of work? Was Lenya giving her a sympathy vote? I love Stratas' singing elsewhere, in the Boulez recording of Lulu (for example), but she is no good here.

For a newcomer to Weill, I highly recommend Anna Sophie Von Otter (excellent in every way) or even Ute Lemper's entertaining album. For that matter, go back and pick up Lotte Lenya's remastered Threepenny Opera -- it doesn't get much better than that. This Weill album, however, is tellingly named: it deserves to be unknown.