biography
pronunciation:
[viyl]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1900–50)
|
| biography:
| Composer, born in Dessau, EC Germany. He studied and worked at Berlin, became a composer of instrumental works, then collaborated with Brecht, achieving fame with Die Dreigroschenoper (1928, The Threepenny Opera), its best-known song, ‘Mack the Knife’, becoming an international classic. A refugee from the Nazis, he settled with his actress wife Lotte Lenya in the USA in 1935. His Broadway works included Knickerbocker Holiday (1938) and Lady in the Dark (1941), and he also wrote the ‘folk opera’ Down in the Valley (1948), which used traditional Kentucky tunes. His later operas and musical comedies, all of which contain an element of social criticism, did not repeat the success of the first. |
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