Search - Kurt Weill, Michael Cerveris, Donna Murphy :: Lovemusik (2007 Original Broadway Cast)

Truly Excellent Performances

M.D.S | Fayetteville, NY | 12/01/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"LoveMusik was an intellectuals juke box musical and like most juke box musicals they can be seriously flawed. "LoveMusik" had its problems but nothing can stop Donna Murphy and Michael Cerveris two of probably the best actors currently on Broadway. Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy make an excellent Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. For the first time I think that I can really appreciate the music of Kurt Weill (something that was hard to do in the past thanks to the unfortunate revival of "The Three Penny Opera" in 2006).



Songs like "I Don't Love You", "That's Him", "It Never was You" and "September Song" are truly mesmerizing. "Speak Low" should also be noted as an excellent Duet (seeing it staged was chilling and inspiring). Donna Murphy and John Scherer's (as George Davis) "September Song" is the best version I have ever heard, both heart breaking and hopeful. This CD includes a great cast and some great music."

A Moving Musical Cavalcade of an Historic Romance

RareRare | 12/01/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Harold Prince and Alfred Uhry have fashioned a one-of-a-kind musical out of the lives and loves of two great artists of the 20th century, Kurt Weill and his muse Lotte Lenya, by creating a script of their existing letters and selecting songs from Weill's brilliant musical library to bring to life their true and troubled relationship. Each remarkable song is masterfully executed by the gifted cast which includes the Tony-award-winning dou, Donna Murphy and Michael Cerveris, as well as the splendid supporting Broadway veterans and newbies. Prince has always been able to recruit the best performers possible and he certainly didn't fail this time. What a shame that something this good and original cannot last on the Disneyland world once called Broadway, but, with stagehands wanting more money to turn on a light switch and keep a closed shop of blood relations, that long-forgotten world won't be back any time soon."

Flawless performances, flawless music... aber etwas fehlt.

S. P. Mabrey | Fayetteville, AR | 12/27/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Emblazoned across the top on the back of the CD case, there's an excerpt from Terry Teachout's review for The Wall Street Journal: "You won't hear better music on Broadway - or anywhere else, for that matter." There's no doubt that this is most definitely the case, especially given that most theatre audiences today are subjected to Frankie Vallee and the Four Seasons or ABBA or rehashed Disney ditties. I also agree with the "anywhere else" statement, as I'd much rather listen to Kurt Weill (sung by Lotte Lenya or anyone) than listen to Rihanna--whoever she is--"singing" about an um-BER-ella--whatever that is. But I digress...



Kurt Weill was a consumate theatre composer who was always in touch with the human condition, and even his art-songs which weren't composed for the theatre (some of which are heard here) are still very much steeped in beautifully understated human drama. But to praise music that was composed between 1925 and 1949 doesn't say much of the 2007 show which contains said music.



Let me state for the record, that Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy give truly staggering performances. These are stage actors of the highest calibre... they threw themselves into these roles with such a vengance that even the bone structure in their face seemed to change and it became uncanny how closely they resembled the historical figures they were portraying. The same can be said of David Pittu, as a very feisty, sexy Bertolt Brecht; and John Scherer is also equally wonderful as George Davis. Indeed, there's not really a weak link in the whole cast, with stalwart vetrans Judith Blazer and Ann Morrison standing out for special mention.



However... as Jimmy Mahoney would say in Brecht & Weill's opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, "Aber etwas fehlt."



It not that this was a bad idea for a musical, by any means: the true story of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya's complex relationship makes for great drama. Just read Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, the wonderfully insightful published collection of their correspondance, and this becomes abundantly clear. Perhaps Marty Bell shines a spotlight on what LOVEMUSIK's true flaw was, when, in his liner notes for this recording, he states that "the rules the creators were establishing for their show were that there were no rules." Maybe all this show really needed was a stronger unifying theme? A clearer vision, perhaps? Or does it all boil down to a lack of a stead-fast hand at the helm? (Although, you'd be hard-pressed to find a sturdier hand than the brilliant Harold Prince...)



Regardless, all of the best of LOVEMUSIK (and only a little of the worst) is preserved on this cast album. We now have a permanent document of outstanding performances of some of the best music of the 20th century. Cerveris is breaks the heart on "It Never Was You"; Murphy's performance on the final track alone is amazingly truthful (not to mention Tony-worthy). Enough praise cannot be lavished upon Ceveris and Murphy, as these two never ring false, not for one millisecond, and never fall into lifeless impersonation. Pittu gives a wonderfully biting and broodingly funny reading of "Hosannah Rockefeller," more-than-ably assisted by Blazer, Morrison, and Rachel Ulanet. That "little of the worst" can be sampled when we hear the ensemble sing "Girl of the Moment" (from Weill's 1941 Broadway musical LADY IN THE DARK) in thick, German accents: it's like all of a sudden the show turns into a sketch on SNL -- albeit a very obscure, high-brow sketch. But the high points outnumber the low: much later, the ensemble performs "A Bird of Passage" and it is breath-taking. And those art songs that belong in a theatre (of which I made mention earlier) are all highlights: it's a treat to hear "Nannas Lied" and "Je ne t'aime pas" in rare English-language performances... although it is a mystery to me why the creative team recycled the rather lacklustre translations of Michael Feingold (written originally for Ben Bagley's 1981 "Kurt Weill Revisited" albums), rather than getting even better brand-new ones (especially if they were charging an audience full ticket prices to see "a new Broadway musical"). Also, Weill's rare American songs "Schikelgruber" and "Buddy on the Nighshift" are a treat here, too, and the context in which they are utilized are very creative and top-notch. (The use of Weill's "Kiddush" setting and his "Song of the Rhineland" in the beginning of the show are equally novel and approprietly amusing.) However, some of the vocal and musical arrangements bother me, changing too much of Weill's vision (such as in the ending of "Nanna's Song" and interior transitions in "I Don't Love You") and Tunick's orchestrations, while for the most part very strong, occasionally stray a bit too far from what is truly the Weill sound world.



I hope it doesn't sound like I am anti-LOVEMUSIK, because honestly, with all of the short-comings, it still breaks my heart that this show wasn't extended for a longer, commercial Broadway run. As theatre insiders know and will tell you, every time a new Broadway show dies, a part of Broadway dies with it, and it's a shame that a show so beautifully acted had to die; it's a shame that a musical full of some of the finest theatre music ever composed had to die.



Those musicals that I refer to as "Juke Box Musicals" (musicals such as MAMMA MIA!, JERSEY BOYS, WE WILL ROCK YOU, LENNON, GOOD VIBRATIONS, ALL SHOOK UP, IN MY LIFE, ad nauseum) are the musicals that make my skin crawl and my blood boil. I love ABBA and Queen as much as the next guy, really, and I do enjoy listening to their albums. But I don't consider a script with songs by these bands stuck into it to be THEATRE: the songs don't rise or organically from the situation, the authors are merely trying to find a novel way to feautre the songs. (Not to mention the fact that the rules and standards for what makes a good song lyric in the pop music world are ENTIRELY different from those in theatre, that make a human character express themselves in song and rhyme.) Why would I spend

over $100 to see this when I could just as easily (and much more cheaply) purchase a CD of ABBA's greatest hits? So, if one must do a Juke Box Musical, I should think that a Juke Box Musical of the work of an honest-to-God theatre composer would be preferable.



What a pity that most Broadway audiences seem to disagree with me..."