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A reissue of Bertolt Brecht’s classic play, including Brecht’s Notes and an introduction by the great actress and chanteuse Lotte Lenya.
The Threepenny Opera broke box-office records in its original Berlin run, 1928-1933, and has had many extremely successful runs in the United States ever since.
There have been several English adaptations. The present “book” of Desmond Vesey’s renders every word of the German, including Bertolt Brecht’s Notes. Eric Bentley’s lyrics are also faithful to the German, though they are, of course, written to be sung to the famous Kurt Weill’s music.
Kurt Weill’s widow, the great actress and chanteuse Lotte Lenya, has written the introduction, telling the story of how The Threepenny Opera came into being.
Praise for The Threepenny Opera
“I think The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage are the great plays of our time.” —Lillian Hellman
Praise for Bertolt Brecht
“The virtue of Brecht’s plays is good sense carried to the point of grandeur.”—Harold Clurman
“Brecht may be considered to have made the major German contribution to world literature in our time.”—Rudolf Leonhardt, The New York Times Book Review
Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1898. One of the most influential dramatists of our time, he is best known for his classic plays The Threepenny Opera, Galileo, and Mother Courage and Her Children, as well as many others. He died in Berlin in 1956.