Happy End: ein Stück mit Musik in drei Akten by Kurt Weill (review)

The Kurt Weill Edition is an ongoing project which documents Weill's works in four series—Stage, Screen, Concert, and Miscellanea—in editions as definitive as possible based on available sources. All of the volumes examined by this writer have been exemplary in editing, textual background, and engraving. This new edition of Happy Endcontinues this excellent and thorough work, particularly since the preparation of this project presented numerous challenges to the editors.

As described in the separate Critical Report, this project "publishes Happy Endfor the first time as a musicodramatic entity that comprises spoken scenes intercalated with musical numbers in full score format" (p. 9). The road to produce this volume involved a great amount of research given that primary sources are incomplete, and ultimately the editors had to establish solutions and create a "synthetic approach" (p. 9). One of their goals was to reproduce the opening night presentation, which was altered due to negative reviews and explosive audience reaction.

Based on the success of Die Dreigroschengroper, known in English as The Threepenny Opera, the team of Bertolt Brecht, Elisabeth Hauptmann, Kurt Weill, Caspar Neher, Erich Engel, Theo Mackeben, and the Lewis Ruth Band once again collaborated on a new theatrical work. Where The Threepenny Operawas based on John Gay's The Beggar's Operawhich was about the underworld of nineteenth-century London, Happy Endtook place in Chicago in the modern era. As stated in the introduction to this edition by Stephen Hinton, critic Arthur Eloesser wrote that this amounted to the "Americanization" of the earlier work. The Salvation Army, and in particular the character of Lieutenant Lilian Holiday are the main instigators of innocence (and in this case religion) to triumph and "enter into an alliance with big business" (p. 13).

Hinton describes a chaotic creative process, with extensive changes made during rehearsals. In particular, the rehearsal period was invaluable in creating the third act of the production; the original script presented the work in four acts. Director Erich Engel was released from the production after continual disagreements with Brecht. Weill revised the orchestration working directly with the Lewis Ruth Band, which he found very instructive.

First-night audiences and critics reacted favorably to acts 1 and 2, but almost rioted after the finale of act 3, "Hosiannah Rockefeller," with its portraits of American capitalists Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan as saints. While Carola Neher as Holiday was praised and several numbers generated encores, critics did not like Hauptmann's play. The show closed after thirty performances. Happily, Lotte Lenya recorded the songs "Surabaya-Johnny" and the "Bilbao-Song" in late 1929, so that there is some idea of how the music was performed at the time of the premiere, but it should be noted that she was not in the original production.

"Flop" shows in the Broadway theater during this era usually meant that the sets went into storage for use in future shows or were destroyed, and the instrumental scores and parts sent to the...