Lady in the Dark
| Musical dates | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Lady in the Dark |
| Original title: | Lady in the Dark |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Kurt Weill |
| Book: | Moss Hart |
| Lyrics: | Ira Gershwin |
| Premiere: | January 23, 1941 |
| Place of premiere: | Alvin Theater, New York City |
Lady in the Dark is a Broadway - Musical of 1941 with music by Kurt Weill and song lyrics by Ira Gershwin . The book is by Moss Hart , who also directed it.
content
The piece takes up the then current psychoanalysis as a topic and processes the author's experiences during his own analysis with Gregory Zilboorg . It is divided into four musical scenes designed as dream sequences (Glamor Dream, Wedding Dream, Circus Dream and Childhood Dream). The psychological recovery of the main character Eliza Elliott is illustrated by a continuous musical theme that, starting from a fragment, gradually becomes more and more extensive until it becomes a complete song (My Ship). The main character, Eliza Elliott, is the editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine, professionally successful but unhappy and unable to choose between two men. Only at the very end does she realize that a third man is the right one. The plot progresses chronologically, Liza is repeatedly shown at work and preoccupied with her personal problems, then scenes follow again and again in which she talks to her psychoanalyst and tells him the dreams, which are then played as musical scenes.
Well-known music numbers
- Oh, Fabulous One - Oh, Heavenly
- One Life to Live - Everyone lives only once
- Girl of the moment - most beautiful of the hour
- This is New - There is new
- The Princess of Pure Delight - The princess of pure bliss
- Tchaikovsky
- The Saga of Jenny - The saga of Jenny
- My Ship - Mein Schiff
Performance history
The musical premiered at the Alvin Theater (now Neil Simon Theater ) on January 23, 1941 under the musical direction of Maurice Abravanel ; on May 30, 1942, the last of 467 performances took place. Gertrude Lawrence ( Liza Elliott ), Danny Kaye ( Russell Paxton ), Macdonald Carey ( Charley Johnson ), and Victor Mature ( Randy Curtis ) played in the original line-up .
The German-language premiere under the title The lost song was on May 24, 1951 in the State Theater in Kassel . The translation into German comes from Adolf Stemmle and Maria Teich. The musical was performed as Die Dame im Dunkeln in Lübeck in 1976 in a translation by Karl Vibach and Marianne Schubart . Again in a new translation by Roman Hinze, Lady in the Dark was shown from October 2011 at the Hanover State Opera under the direction of Matthias Davids .
filming
The film adaptation from 1944, also under the title Lady in the Dark , was directed by Mitchell Leisen with Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland in the leading roles. It does without a large part of Weill's music, but not the central My Ship .
Web links
- Lady in the Dark in the Internet Broadway Database (IBDb)
- Lady in the Dark (1940) at Kurt Weill Foundation for Music ( English )
- Music and stage represents performance rights in Germany.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alex Ross: Maurice Abravanel, 90, Utah Symphony Leader . In: The New York Times . September 23, 1993, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed September 19, 2017]).