Latest news with #Weimar-era
Channel 4
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Channel 4
‘Art is nowadays completely commercial'
She was the star of the original Paris production of Cabaret, winning an Olivier Award for her Broadway role in Chicago. German singer Ute Lemper, whose family was divided by the Berlin Wall, performed alongside Pink Floyd to mark its collapse. Her career has been defined by her love of the music of the Weimar-era, and the composer Kurt Weill. 125 years after his birth, she's released a new album adapting his music for the modern age – and she'll perform it at Cadogan Hall in London next weekend.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Hegseth's ‘Big Brother' book purge models the worst of McCarthyism
The U.S. Naval Academy has had a library since the day it was founded in Annapolis, Md. in 1845. Its history had been one of steady expansion and wide inclusion until last month, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the removal of suspect books. Hegseth was not the first Republican figure to demand a library purge. That was the disgraced Roy Cohn, Sen. Joe McCarthy's henchman and President Trump's early mentor. Hegseth was, however, the first to insist that future military officers could be harmed by exposure to the wrong books. In fact, the most famous five-star general in U.S. history once took a decidedly contrary view. The Naval Academy's initial curriculum included mathematics, navigation, gunnery, chemistry and interestingly, natural philosophy, for which the original 50 midshipmen could study from the 400 books housed in the superintendent's office. The library expanded over the ensuing 180 years, moving from location to location until 1973, when the collection was consolidated in the new building of the Nimitz Library. It now holds over 500,000 print books, as well as ebooks, periodicals, databases and videos, both scholarly and popular. The Annapolis administration at first believed that the college-level academy was not subject to President Trump's executive order requiring the removal of books related to diversity, equity and inclusion themes from K-12 libraries. Hegseth, however, thought differently. His office informed the Naval Academy that Trump's order applied in full. The academy had no choice but to acquiesce, announcing its full commitment 'to executing and implementing all directives outlined in executive orders,' and undertaking a review of 'the Nimitz Library collection to ensure compliance.' The review yielded a list of 381 books, evidently deemed too dangerous to remain on the shelves. One of the banned books is poet Maya Angelou's best-selling memoir 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.' Others include studies of lynching in the South, the history of the Ku Klux Klan, the Holocaust, Weimar-era Germany, anti-Asian racism, gender studies, Mormonism and several books about Muslim and Palestinian Americans. Coinciding with Trump's campaign of political retribution, the list also includes Stacey Abrams's 'Our Time Is Now.' A Navy spokesperson explained that the purge was part of 'the Naval Academy's mission … to develop midshipmen morally, mentally and physically in order to cultivate honorable leaders, create a culture of excellence, and prepare them for careers of service to our country.' In 1953, Cohn went on a similar mission at the behest of his boss, McCarthy. He was tasked with investigating the libraries at U.S. cultural centers in Europe for the purpose of removing purported 'communist' books from the shelves. Needless to say, Cohn declared that he found what he was looking for, declaring that the libraries were 'fairly teeming with anti-American, pro-Soviet books written by Communists and fellow travelers.' At one stop on the multi-city tour, Cohn proudly displayed 'The Maltese Falcon,' by the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, as 'proof that there were indeed Communists represented in the American library.' He did not mention that the 1941 film adaptation had been nominated for three Academy Awards, having done no damage to the morals or citizenship of American movie-goers in the 12 years since its release. McCarthy himself promised to 'pin down' those who were 'directly responsible' for 'placing the U.S. stamp of approval on a vast number of well-known Communist authors.' Predating Hegseth by 72 years, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ordered the removal of many books 'stocked in our libraries throughout the world.' Although McCarthy did not then have a fraction of Trump's power today, the U.S. Senate nonetheless embraced his efforts to purge intolerable reading matter. His Senate Committee on Government Operations unanimously endorsed Cohn's finding of 'Communist infiltration of our libraries.' It was President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander who led the victory in World War II, who finally repudiated political censorship. In an address at the 1953 Dartmouth College commencement, he urged the graduates, 'Don't join the book burners.' Instead, he told them, 'Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.' It is shameful that Naval Academy midshipmen are being given a very different message from the Trump administration. McCarthy finally met his downfall in what became known as the Army-McCarthy hearings, when he attacked the loyalty of military officers. Perhaps today's military leaders will eventually take a similar stand for their own freedom of thought. Publicly posting the names and authors of the Naval Academy's 381 banned books may even have been intended as a small act of resistance. And at least the forbidden volumes have not been burned or shredded, but merely 'placed in a room where library patrons cannot access them,' leaving open the possibility of restoration. In the meantime, Hegseth has earned for himself perhaps the best-known rebuke from the McCarthy era: 'Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?' Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
15-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Hegseth's ‘Big Brother' book purge models the worst of McCarthyism
The U.S. Naval Academy has had a library since the day it was founded in Annapolis, Md. in 1845. Its history had been one of steady expansion and wide inclusion until last month, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the removal of suspect books. Hegseth was not the first Republican figure to demand a library purge. That was the disgraced Roy Cohn, Sen. Joe McCarthy's henchman and President Trump's early mentor. Hegseth was, however, the first to insist that future military officers could be harmed by exposure to the wrong books. In fact, the most famous five-star general in U.S. history once took a decidedly contrary view. The Naval Academy's initial curriculum included mathematics, navigation, gunnery, chemistry and interestingly, natural philosophy, for which the original 50 midshipmen could study from the 400 books housed in the superintendent's office. The library expanded over the ensuing 180 years, moving from location to location until 1973, when the collection was consolidated in the new building of the Nimitz Library. It now holds over 500,000 print books, as well as ebooks, periodicals, databases and videos, both scholarly and popular. The Annapolis administration at first believed that the college-level academy was not subject to President Trump's executive order requiring the removal of books related to diversity, equity and inclusion themes from K-12 libraries. Hegseth, however, thought differently. His office informed the Naval Academy that Trump's order applied in full. The academy had no choice but to acquiesce, announcing its full commitment 'to executing and implementing all directives outlined in executive orders,' and undertaking a review of 'the Nimitz Library collection to ensure compliance.' The review yielded a list of 381 books, evidently deemed too dangerous to remain on the shelves. One of the banned books is poet Maya Angelou's best-selling memoir 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.' Others include studies of lynching in the South, the history of the Ku Klux Klan, the Holocaust, Weimar-era Germany, anti-Asian racism, gender studies, Mormonism and several books about Muslim and Palestinian Americans. Coinciding with Trump's campaign of political retribution, the list also includes Stacey Abrams's 'Our Time Is Now.' A Navy spokesperson explained that the purge was part of 'the Naval Academy's mission … to develop midshipmen morally, mentally and physically in order to cultivate honorable leaders, create a culture of excellence, and prepare them for careers of service to our country.' In 1953, Cohn went on a similar mission at the behest of his boss, McCarthy. He was tasked with investigating the libraries at U.S. cultural centers in Europe for the purpose of removing purported 'communist' books from the shelves. Needless to say, Cohn declared that he found what he was looking for, declaring that the libraries were 'fairly teeming with anti-American, pro-Soviet books written by Communists and fellow travelers.' At one stop on the multi-city tour, Cohn proudly displayed 'The Maltese Falcon,' by the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, as 'proof that there were indeed Communists represented in the American library.' He did not mention that the 1941 film adaptation had been nominated for three Academy Awards, having done no damage to the morals or citizenship of American movie-goers in the 12 years since its release. McCarthy himself promised to 'pin down' those who were 'directly responsible' for 'placing the U.S. stamp of approval on a vast number of well-known Communist authors.' Predating Hegseth by 72 years, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ordered the removal of many books 'stocked in our libraries throughout the world.' Although McCarthy did not then have a fraction of Trump's power today, the U.S. Senate nonetheless embraced his efforts to purge intolerable reading matter. His Senate Committee on Government Operations unanimously endorsed Cohn's finding of 'Communist infiltration of our libraries.' It was President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander who led the victory in World War II, who finally repudiated political censorship. In an address at the 1953 Dartmouth College commencement, he urged the graduates, 'Don't join the book burners.' Instead, he told them, 'Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.' It is shameful that Naval Academy midshipmen are being given a very different message from the Trump administration. McCarthy finally met his downfall in what became known as the Army-McCarthy hearings, when he attacked the loyalty of military officers. Perhaps today's military leaders will eventually take a similar stand for their own freedom of thought. Publicly posting the names and authors of the Naval Academy's 381 banned books may even have been intended as a small act of resistance. And at least the forbidden volumes have not been burned or shredded, but merely 'placed in a room where library patrons cannot access them,' leaving open the possibility of restoration. In the meantime, Hegseth has earned for himself perhaps the best-known rebuke from the McCarthy era: 'Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?' .
Forbes
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Revivals Of Classic Weill, Chekhov Plays Offered Now In Brooklyn
Top revivals of two classics—Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera and Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard—are being performed in Brooklyn this month. The Threepenny Opera is being presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music by BAM and St. Ann's Warehouse through April 6, while The Cherry Orchard, a new version of the play by Benedict Andrews that originally ran at the Donmar Warehouse in London, will be offered at St. Ann's Warehouse through April 27. 16 December 2019, Berlin: Oliver Reese (l-r), artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble, conductor Adam Benzwi and Barrie Kosky, director and artistic director of the Komische Oper Berlin, will be at a press conference at the Berliner Ensemble. Kosky stages a new production of the Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill at the Berliner Ensemble. The premiere will be celebrated in early 2021. Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa (Photo by Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images) dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images The production of Bertolt Brecht's and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera was created by director Barrie Kosky; it is performed by the Berliner Ensemble, which was founded by Brecht and whose home remains the theater where the opera premiered in 1928. As BAM explains, 'Murderous antihero Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) slashes through Victorian London in The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht's scandalous satire that electrified Weimar-era German audiences 400 times in just two years after its 1928 debut. 'A century later, Brecht's razor-sharp critique of unbridled capitalism still cuts deep—an eerily prophetic vision of a well-fed society teetering on the brink, propelled by Kurt Weill's infectious, jazz-infused score. 'Barrie Kosky's Berliner Ensemble production is sly and perversely sexy, embracing seediness and cynicism with glitzy disillusion and more than a hint of danger. A master showman, Kosky manages to beguile us through the familiar rise and fall of Brecht's sociopathic leading man, adding a knowing creepiness to his unrepentant antics. 'As Mack the Knife's indelible melody lingers, this sleek, elemental staging amplifies the play's knife-edge allure, proving its savage indictment of greed remains as urgent and seductive as ever,' BAM concluded. LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 02: Benedict Andrews attends the press night after party for "The Cherry Orchard" at The Donmar Warehouse on May 02, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by)Discussing its Chekov production, St. Ann's Warehouse said, 'In this in-the-round staging, the international cast arrive all at once and remain visible throughout the show, free to improvise and inhabit the characters' sacred home that will soon be gone. In the The Cherry Orchard Ranevskaya and her aristocratic household are confronted by the demands of a changing world. The tensions between the past and future, the personal and the political, are explored with urgency and passion while the family grapples with the inevitable loss.' Andrews, the theater continued, 'has developed a reputation as one of the world's leading interpreters of Chekhov. With the critically acclaimed The Cherry Orchard, he takes on the writer's masterpiece, contemporizing elements of the text in an unbridled, playful, and devastating vision that feels, (The Evening Standard said), 'entirely true to the spirit of the original.'' According to St. Ann's, Andrews said, 'I just love being in the rehearsal room with actors and Chekhov, it is the greatest gift. It invites enormous play, enormous exploration. It's a very democratic, collective, exploratory process where there's room for people to make offers and search for the life of the play together. By us putting the audience all the way around, there's an openness to it, it's only, only about the actors, their contact, and how they play with each other, and how that resonates with an audience. That collective experience is all I'm interested in.' St. Ann's previously offered Andrews' production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Gillian Anderson, Vanessa Kirby and Ben Foster. In an interview this week with Andrews said the text he created for his Chekhov production is 'direct and contemporary,' though he did retain Russian references. He also praised the intimacy of St. Ann's theater. Chekhov's characters, he added, live in a society 'that's on the brink of change and uncertainty, there's a storm on the horizon.' In today's 'time of division, (for the audience) to watch an ensemble play like this together I find really moving,' he concluded.
New York Times
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Barrie Kosky Is the Director New York Has Been Waiting For
When 'The Threepenny Opera' returns to New York this spring, for an all-too-brief visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it will be notable for a few reasons. For one, it will be a homecoming. Although 'Threepenny' was born in Berlin, an artifact of Weimar-era culture, with music by Kurt Weill and text by Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann, it had a midcentury resurgence on the level of a pop-culture phenomenon when it was revived Off Broadway in 1954. And it will be performed by the Berliner Ensemble, which was founded by Brecht and still operates out of the theater where 'Threepenny' had its premiere in 1928. The group is a trustworthy custodian of a work that is often mishandled today, especially in recent New York productions. But what is most important about this run of 'Threepenny,' presented by BAM and St. Ann's Warehouse April 3 through 6, is that it will be the first real opportunity for New York audiences to see the work of the director Barrie Kosky. Though Kosky, 58, graced local playbills once before, when his production of 'The Magic Flute,' a collaboration with the company 1927, came to the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2019, 'Threepenny' will be the first show that is purely his own. Which should come as a shock, since Kosky is one of the busiest and most brilliant, not to mention entertaining, directors working in Europe today. He is a director accomplished in theater and opera. His work could fit easily on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera, with a balance of intelligence and showmanship that would breathe new life into both. This 'Threepenny' will be an opportunity for him to win over New York audiences. Will impresarios be watching? Born in Australia, Kosky has described himself as a 'gay, Jewish kangaroo.' His grandparents were European transplants who came from Budapest and the shtetls of Belarus. His grandmother from Hungary instilled in him a love of operetta, he wrote in his book ''Und Vorhang auf, Hallo!,'' or ''And Curtain Up, Hello!'' He ended up developing a passion for classical music, operas and musicals without much regard for genre or hierarchy. To him, 'The Magic Flute' was the 'mother ship of the musical.' Mahler's symphonies were art, and so was 'The Simpsons.' As he grew up, and began to perform in and then direct theater, his artistry was informed, he likes to say, by two other cultural artifacts: Kafka's writing and 'The Muppets.' They weren't so different, at least in his mind. Several Kafka stories are about talking animals, and there is something Kafkaesque in Kermit's never-ending struggle to keep his show going. Both, Kosky wrote in his memoir, are reminiscent of Yiddish theater; Fozzie Bear is even a kind of sad Jewish clown. He thought of 'The Muppets' as 'a queer space' in which Miss Piggy was the reigning drag queen, flirting with Rudolf Nureyev in a steam room and tormenting Kermit, a gay 'Max Reinhardt meets Charlie Chaplin.' It's sensational for Kosky to say that his aesthetic is Kafka and 'The Muppets,' but if you watch his productions with that in mind, it's accurate. There is hardly a trace of realism in his shows, which tend to unfold throughout dreamscapes. A room may not have a wall; comedy may become irrationally nightmarish; life may just be an endless vaudeville. Kosky's career bloomed in Australia before flourishing in Europe, with tenures running the Schauspielhaus in Vienna and the Komische Oper in Berlin. (He has also had champions in the United States. The Met had planned to import his production of Prokofiev's 'The Fiery Angel' in 2020. It was canceled because of the pandemic, with no rescheduling in sight. Upstate, however, he is developing a new work with the Fisher Center at Bard.) Throughout his projects you sense someone, like Kermit, determined to put on a good show. That is why even his weaker productions still function well as theater. If anything, that is the thread through his stagings. Some are maximalist and some are minimalist, but all are theatrical, which isn't always the case with his peers in Europe. And while there are visual hallmarks to a Kosky show, like bold colors, his work is more recognizable for its sensibility: Audience members can count on virtually airtight logic, no matter how zany his work may appear, and they can expect performers to behave with the organic freedom that comes from thorough, detail-obsessed rehearsals. Like the best of directors, Kosky also knows that different titles call for different looks and dramatic gestures. In his book he describes 'Tosca' as an opera that calls for 'thick oil paint and a broad brush,' whereas something by Mozart or Janacek requires 'a fine brush.' One of the broadest canvases in the repertoire is Wagner's 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,' which Kosky staged at the Bayreuth Festival in 2017. The production encapsulated his bravery, wit and charm. 'Meistersinger' contains over four and a half hours of music, with pitfalls throughout: comedy, romance, antisemitic tropes and, in the final minutes, a darkly nationalistic turn. Even more difficult is staging it at Bayreuth, which was founded by Wagner and comes with the baggage of complicated history, not least as a favorite opera destination of Hitler's. Kosky addressed all that head-on. He set the first act inside a replica of Wahnfried, Wagner's home, where the composer was known to play and sing through his opera scores. Kosky recreated one of those gatherings, with 'Meistersinger' characters represented by real, historical people like Cosima Wagner and her father, Franz Liszt. He even included Wagner's Newfoundland dogs. At first, the set design was unusually realistic for Kosky. But at the end of Act One, the walls were pulled up to reveal the comparatively chilly courtroom interior of the Nuremberg trials. In Wagner's libretto, the second act closes with a comedic riot sparked by a misunderstanding and an attack on the character Beckmesser, a pedantic villain coded as a kind of Jewish outsider. There was humor in Kosky's staging, but it was replaced by horror at what suddenly started to look like a pogrom. It felt as if everyone in the theater was holding their breath as an enormous antisemitic caricature based on 'The Eternal Jew' inflated onstage like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float. As it deflated and the curtain closed, the audience was left with a provocation for the hourlong intermission that followed. For the nationalistic ending, Kosky had the character Hans Sachs deliver his monologue about 'holy German art' as if testifying at Nuremberg, shaking his fists with conviction as the courtroom emptied and he was left alone while a Fellini-esque orchestra in black tie rolled onstage to play the jubilant finale. Was it delusion or triumph? The audience was left to decide, a stand-in for the jury. Like the opera, Kosky's staging was hardly simple. But it was clear, funny yet terrifying, delightful and then haunting. He has achieved similar effects with starker images. In his production of Janacek's 'Kat'a Kabanova' at the Salzburg Festival in 2022, the opera's tragedy unfolded both on a bare stage and before hundreds of mannequins with their backs turned on the action. The action of his 'Fiddler on the Roof,' which originated at the Komische Oper but has traveled to Lyric Opera of Chicago, springs from a stack of wardrobes and wooden furniture. 'Fiddler' is far from the only musical that Kosky has staged at the Komische Oper, a one-stop shop in Berlin for opera, operetta and musical theater. During his time there, which ended in 2022 with a delirious, three-hour show called 'Barrie Kosky's All-Singing, All-Dancing Yiddish Revue,' he revolutionized the company's repertoire and unearthed operettas by composers like Paul Abraham, Oscar Straus and Emmerich Kalman. Kosky continues to direct at the Komische Oper, and he is midway through a plan to stage five musicals there. He began with 'La Cage aux Folles,' in a gayer, grander treatment than it ever got on Broadway, and continued with 'Chicago,' free of Fosse clichés and heavy on razzle-dazzle. Last fall he directed 'Sweeney Todd,' which at first appeared to take place in a Victorian toy theater before unfolding against images of urban decay, including in Thatcher-era London. All these were better than their most recent counterparts in New York. Directing 'Threepenny,' at the storied Berliner Ensemble in 2021, had similar pressures to the 'Meistersinger' job at Bayreuth. He was replacing the chilly, unmusical production by Robert Wilson, and 'Threepenny,' a beloved but imperfect work, is difficult. Too often, modern productions are bogged down by humorlessness and affected sleaze, as if it were 'Cabaret.' But 'Threepenny' is filthily hilarious and dangerously entertaining, daring audiences to be seduced by Weill's earworm melodies before stinging them with the barbs of Brecht and Hauptmann's script. Kosky, more than most directors, is sensitive to its polyphonic structure in his staging, which moves around, repeats and trims material throughout to make the show move briskly and with a light hand, allowing the subtext its slithering grace. For people who were brought up on Brecht as a purveyor of deliberatively blunt theater, Kosky's approach may seem sacrilegious. But in its affability, its showmanship, his 'Threepenny' works the unsettling magic it should. It's not until the lights come up, and you begin to relax your smile, that you realize you were just cheering for a narcissistic murderer by the name of Mack the Knife.
