Adrienne Haan: Adrienne Haan Sings Kurt Weill

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Adrienne Haan

Adrienne Haan Sings Kurt Weill

 Metropolitan Room, NYC, September 28, 2016

Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes

Adrienne-Haan-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212Theatrical, passionate and unrestrained, Adrienne Haan Sings Kurt Weill delivered songs of sexuality, seduction, heartbreak and joie de vivre at the Metropolitan Room. It was a one-night-only pièce de résistance, enticing enough for the club to feature the show again in one month.

Preceded by a section of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, German-born Haan strode on stage, tall and elegant in a black tuxedo, her hair a cap of sleek platinum. She wore a head mic, eliminating the need for a standing microphone and giving her freedom to work the stage and interpret the songs with stylized power. She explored emotions of malice, melancholy, yearning and high jinks, all through the music of composer Kurt Weill, a German-born Jew who, influenced by American jazz, created many politically controversial songs during the Nazi rise. He was forced to leave Berlin, first for Paris, then London, then New York. He worked with various lyricists who wrote in German, French and English and, with Haan’s fierce acting prowess, there was no problem with translation.
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Accompaniment of Dan Levinson and the Novembergruppe Quintet added to her personal inherent drama. Haan opened the show with “My Ship” (from Lady in the Dark with Ira Gershwin), a haunting melody with a center of anxiety. An evil tension drove “Pirate Jenny” (from Die Dreigroschenoper/The Threepenny Opera with Bertold Brecht; English lyrics by Marc Blitzstein), along with the addition of a well-timed dramatic drumbeat.  From the same show, a tuba accompanied her rendition of “The Ballad of Mack the Knife” (English lyrics by Guy Stern), the deep tone pointing to the threat of the Weimar Republic. Similarly, he presented “Le Grand Lustucru” (from Marie Galante with Theodor Botrel, adapted by Jacques Deval), using the image of a “boogie-man” as a hint of the oncoming Nazi threat.

Haan probed the dramatic depths of the songs of men who did their women wrong. In her provocative adaptation of “Surabaya Johnny” (Happy End with Brecht, English lyrics Herbert Hartig), her blonde, glossy facade released a raw essence and shivering passion as she raged at Johnny, the man who beat, robbed and cheated on her. Depleted, almost on the floor, she cried, “Oh I loved you so much, Surabaya Johnny.
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” Then slowly she raised her head to sing “Je ne t’aime pas” (with Maurice Magré), trying, in vain, to negate her feelings.

However, all was not sturm und drang. Singing “Moon Over Alabama” (from Brecht and Weill’s 1930 opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny/Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), which became one of many hits for Weill’s wife, performer Lotte Lenya, Haan strolled around the room strewing fake $100 bills. She leapt on the piano for the indelible drinking song, “Bilbao Song” (from Happy End with Brecht; English lyrics by Michael Feingold), about fabulous times you enjoyed once, but can’t quite remember.

She looked back at life through the eyes of a prostitute in a melancholy “Nanna’s Song” (with Brecht; English lyrics Leonard Lehrman). The band supported her smoky emotion in “Speak Low” (from One Touch of Venus with Ogden Nash) and, from that same show, “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” Haan’s encore.  Adding to the ambience was Jean-Pierre Perreaux’s light and sound design.
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Great credit is due to director Barry Kleinbort and the accompaniment of clarinetist/saxophonist Levinson and his Novembergruppe Quintet, including pianist Richard Danley, violinist Jonathan Russell, guitarist Vinny Raniolo, Jared Engel on bass and tuba, and drummer Mike Campenni.
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The program was under the patronage of German U.N. Ambassador Harald Braun.

Elizabeth Ahlfors

Born and raised in New York, Elizabeth graduated from NYU with a degree in Journalism. She has lived in various cities and countries and now is back in NYC. She has written magazine articles and published three books: A Housewife’s Guide to Women’s Liberation, Twelve American Women, and Heroines of ’76 (for children). A great love was always music and theater—in the audience, not performing. A Philadelphia correspondent for Theatre.com and InTheatre Magazine, she has reviewed theater and cabaret for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City News. She writes for Cabaret Scenes and other cabaret/theater sites. She is a judge for Nightlife Awards and a voting member of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle.