- Born
- Died
- Birth nameKurt Julian Weill
- Kurt Weill was born on March 2, 1900 in Dessau, Germany. He was a composer and writer, known for Three Penny Opera (1963), Knickerbocker Holiday (1944) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). He was married to Lotte Lenya. He died on April 3, 1950 in New York City, New York, USA.
- SpousesLotte Lenya(1937 - April 3, 1950) (his death)Lotte Lenya(January 28, 1926 - 1933) (divorced)
- Weill emigrated from Germany to the US with the rise of Nazism. He was known for his use of highly unusual subject matter in musicals. Few of them were true hits. "The Threepenny Opera", written in cooperation with Bertolt Brecht, which premiered in Germany (1928), introduced the song "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" and became a hit. In its first American production on Broadway, it flopped in 1933, but became a smash off-Broadway hit in Marc Blitzstein's 1954 translation, running more than five years. Weill's widow Lotte Lenya received a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1956 for playing "Jenny" in this version of the play.
- Weill was one of the few Broadway composers to orchestrate and do the vocal arrangements for his own musicals.
- Is buried, with Lotte Lenya, in Mount Repose Cemetery, Haverstraw, new York.
- Born to a religious Jewish family, he went to Berlin in 1918 to study music composition and wrote his first symphony at that time.
- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
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