Driven into Paradise: Some Notes on Kurt Weill’s Exile in America
In April 1933, Otto Klemperer fled the Nazi regime and went into exile. When he arrived in America to become the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, he was soon confronted with the commercialism which dominated the American music scene, and was appalled by it. For him, and for many other musicians who found refuge in America, the New World was anything but a paradise.
In Kurt Weill’s case, things were very different. Alongside Artur Schnabel and Arturo Toscanini, Weill was one of the few musicians who accommodated reasonably well to their new environment, and he was soon a successful composer. Some of Weill’s musical contributions during these years of exile were groundbreaking contributions to the development of modern musical theater in the United States.
Kurt Weill, who was born in the German town of Dessau in 1900, is often mentioned as one of the most influential theater composers of the Weimar Republic. His most popular work from this time is The Threepenny Opera, with a libretto by Bertolt Brecht. Since he was Jewish and held leftist political beliefs, Weill became a target for the Nazi movement by the end of the 1920s. The première of his opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the Town Mahagonny in 1930 sparked by heavy Nazi rioting and, during the 1932/33 season, his opera Die Bürgschaft (The Guarantee) was effectively banned. When censorship was imposed upon his last work composed in Germany, Der Silbersee (The Silver Lake), Weill fled to Paris.
During his first months in Paris, Weill was convinced that the rise of the Nazis would be short-lived, meaning he could soon return to Germany. However, by the end of 1933, he realized that the Nazis would stay in power for a longer period of time. Therefore, following some unsuccessful forays into commercial theater, he began to work on the biblical drama Der Weg der Verheißung (The Eternal Road), which would be produced in the USA. Since its première was scheduled for December 1935, Weill traveled to New York – and stayed there.
His first years in America were marred by financial difficulties, but Weill soon made useful contacts who ultimately were part of his way to success. Unlike the members of the German expat community on the West Coast, Weill avoided contact with other German refugees. Later, he would note that this, as well as his positive attitude towards the American lifestyle, was a prerequisite for his rise as a composer during his time in exile. His financial problems were at least partially solved in 1938 by the success of his musical comedy Knickerbocker Holiday, and September Song became his first American hit.
In the 1940s, Weill ramped up his efforts on Broadway. One of his most successful compositions from these years was the musical Lady in the Dark (lyrics by Ira Gershwin), which had its Broadway run in 1941 and tells the story of Liza Elliot, a fashion magazine editor who starts consulting a psychoanalyst. When the USA entered the war in 1941, Weill also contributed patriotic music: the score to the film Where do we go from here? tells the story of Bill Morgan, who is keen on joining the military in order to fight for his country during World War II. Weill’s greatest American success, the musical One Touch of Venus (in which contemporary suburban values are lampooned), followed in 1943.
Weill’s musicals from the post-war period were not as popular as the ones from the early 1940s. However, his college opera Down in the Valley, which makes use of famous American tunes, was very well received by audiences and further consolidated his fame. Weill had future plans for similar projects, but died of a heart attack (probably brought on by excessive work) in 1950.
Source: Fritz Haase, Sibylle Haase for the Bundesministerium der Finanzen and the Deutsche Post AG, Public Domain
