Kurt Weill's VIEL LÄRM UM NICHTS feiert Europa Premiere an der Staatsoperette Dresden
Mit „Viel Larm um Liebe" („The Firebrand of Florence") hebt die Staatsoperette Dresden einen Schatz aus der amerikanischen Schaffensperiode von Kurt Weill. Als Vorlage fur diese 1945 am Broadway uraufgefuhrte Operette diente das 1924 entstandene Schauspiel „The Firebrand" von Edwin Justus Mayer uber die amourosen Eskapaden des Bildhauers und Goldschmieds Benvenuto Cellini:
Review - To Be Or Not To Be: Highly Questionable
Start with a wonderful dark comedy from 1942, director Ernst Lubitsch's To Be Or Not To Be, which starred Jack Benny and Carol Lombard as the married, spotlight-hogging stars of a theatre troupe in Nazi occupied Warsaw who wind up using their acting skills to play a part in the Polish resistance,…
THE FIREBRAND OF FLORENCE Begins 3/12
On March 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m., The Collegiate Chorale appears with The New York City Opera Orchestra at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in a performance of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's 1945 Broadway operetta The Firebrand of Florence. The performance, led by guest conductor Ted Sperling, stars baritone Nathan Gunn, soprano Anna Christy, baritone Terrence Mann, and soprano Victoria Clark. Krysty Swann, David Pittu and Patrick Goss complete the cast, and narration will be provided by Stage Director Roger Rees.
Boasting a score by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by playwright and screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer, The Firebrand of Florence had a short run on Broadway in 1945. The work was subsequently not heard for over a half-century until three presentations - Ohio Light Opera (1999), the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London (2000) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna (2000) - shed new light on the relatively obscure work. The performances were not only accepted, but widely acclaimed, thus giving hope for a new life in a new century. Variety's theater critic Steven Suskin says 'I have long believed that Firebrand in concert should be a dazzling delight.'
Benvenuto Cellini, the great Florentine artist, is sentenced to hang, but he is pardoned when the duke realizes that he has not completed a previously commissioned sculpture. Freed, he is able to turn his attention to his favorite model (and object of his affections), Angela. The Duke also is interested in Angela. In a typical operetta plot, Cellini swashbuckles around the stage, keeping the Duke away from Angela, keeping himself away from the Duchess, and escaping yet another death sentence by fleeing to Paris, as the end of the show recapitulates the beginning.
