Conclusion

Throughout his career, Weill remained optimistic that musical theatre could change the world for the better, all while reaching the broadest possible audience. He strove to write music that spoke to its time and place, but also endeavored to write music that possessed lasting impact and beauty. Although Rodgers and Hammerstein and their influence overshadowed Weill’s influence in his own lifetime and soon after, later Broadway figures like Hal Prince, John Kander, and Fred Ebb professed great admiration for Weill, and incorporated some of his innovations into their work. Weill’s legacy thus remains a part of Broadway to this day.

Shifting Paradigms

Two of Weill’s first compositions written for U.S. audiences show the composer mixing German and U.S. aesthetics, sometimes in awkward ways. His first Broadway show, Johnny Johnson (1936), combines aspects of U.S. musical comedy, German expressionist drama, and neue sachlich ideas. Although not a commercial success, critics were supportive, and it led to other opportunities. The composer also tried his hand at a film musical with You and Me (1938), directed by Fritz Lang. They tried to combine a Hollywood gangster story with a Brechtian Lehrstück, but the result proved confusing for U.S. audiences. Both projects show a composer in the process of adapting to a new culture.

For the People

Several projects from the late 1930s saw Weill writing in American folk idioms in ways that he carried over into the 1940s. One Man from Tennessee (1937, unfinished), written for the Federal Theatre Project, uses Leftist language to address contemporary political issues, although problems with the libretto doomed the endeavor. The World’s Fair pageant Railroads on Parade (1939, rev. 1940) represents Weill’s willingness to work within the political center, which coincided with mounting tensions with Germany. After the war (and his naturalization), Weill returned to folk idioms with Down in the Valley (1948), which draws on some of the same musical, theatrical, and political ideas as One Man from Tennessee, but in a drastically different cultural context.

Introduction

Throughout his career, Weill remained fascinated with the idea of “America,” whether as a foreign country or as a flawed but promising homeland. Using Weill’s engagement with the idea of America and American culture, we can see continuities in Weill’s apparently disjunct career. The fact that Weill valued collaboration on both sides of the Atlantic presents another continuity, but also a problem for scholarly paradigms that, following thinkers like Theodor Adorno, privilege artistic autonomy. This book looks beyond notions of influence and autonomy, and instead employs the idea of cultural transfer to better understand Weill’s transnational and multifaceted career. By looking at Weill in the contexts of the culture and politics of the 1930s and 1940s, it becomes clear that Weill never abandoned his hopes that theatre could provoke and transform audiences.

Weill’s America, America’s Weill

The beginnings of Weill’s career coincided with the early days of the Weimar Republic, a period in which Germany experienced remarkable political and cultural changes. Jazz, or at least the idea of jazz, came to symbolize both the good and the bad aspects of America and, more importantly, the “Americanization” of German culture. Weill was ambivalent about jazz. He spoke of it as a source of renewal for German culture, yet the idea of America and the urban alienation it could represent also allowed him critique to that culture. Weill also saw in the United States a potential market, particularly beginning in 1933. However, several factors made it difficult for him to gain a foothold in the United States, including trends in contemporary U.S. modern music circles and the increasing political tension with Germany.

Israel in Egypt

Weill’s evolving relationship with his Jewish heritage is apparent in several of his works. Although the pageant The Eternal Road (1937) premiered in the United States, it was conceived with European audiences in mind. Thus, Weill’s score draws on both German and Jewish musical styles and forms in order to prove that—despite Nazi declarations—the two identities were not in conflict. He wrote his first Jewish characters for the mainstream Broadway stage in Street Scene (1947), which explores the place of Jews within a multicultural community. Lost in the Stars (1949) represents the culmination of Weill’s lifelong passion for racial equality, and hearkens back to some aspects of The Eternal Road, aligning it with emergent conceptions and agendas a “Judeo-Christian” community.

Alienation and Integration

This chapter tracks changing norms of gender and sexuality over the course of the 1940s in Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus (1943), and Love Life (1948). The first two link the notion of fantasy with an idealized feminine figure, but the onset of war changed the terms of that ideal. The third shows one hundred fifty years of U.S. history through one married couple using vaudeville numbers to illuminate the lessons of the narrative. This chapter also traces Weill’s evolving relationship with Rodgers and Hammerstein. Although a tremendous success, Lady in the Dark was overshadowed by Oklahoma! (1943), and documents around One Touch of Venus show Weill trying to respond quickly. Love Life counters the integration revolution of Oklahoma! with its self-consciously Brechtian separation of elements.

Living History

The national conversation about immigration shifted as the Great Depression gave way to World War II. This is apparent in two works that concern the “origin story” of America: the musical Knickerbocker Holiday (1938) and the film Where Do We Go from Here? (1944). Whereas Knickerbocker Holiday paints America as vulnerable to the fascism that had taken hold in Europe, Where Do We Go from Here? holds up the nation as a bastion of freedom and democracy. Weill also tried to feel out the international market with The Firebrand of Florence (1945), but that proved to be the greatest professional miscalculation of his U.S. career. This chapter also discusses the composer’s other wartime activities.