[Alumni-chat] Antiochiana/ Elbert Hubbard

[Sistersara at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/15/2007 9:55:19 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
sjr5 at nyu.edu writes:

One  benefit to Antioch -- Weill when asked for rights to do the 
>first  production of Blitzstein's adaptation of ThreePenny Opera in 
>the late  1950s  aside from the long-running off-Broadway production,  
>Blitzstein selected Antioch  for that honor from many requests in  
>large measure because Morgan's Antioch had  been helpful to him  back 
>in the 30's when he was trying to get his friends out  of  Germany


Oops, a misleading typo.  In the first line, I don't mean Weill.   I intended 
WELL.  But in fact the request for the Antioch rights went to  Blitzstein 
through Lenya, who was Weill's Widow --- Kurt died suddenly of heart  disease in 
1950.  At the time, Marc had adapted only a few of the songs  from Three 
Penny, which they did as a minor concert at Brandise just before Kurt  Weill died 
-- but on the way back from the burial, Lenya and Blitzstein agreed  to the 
full adaptation.  (There was a huge lawsuit about these rights, all  of which I 
had to sort out -- some aspects of it even went on after Blitzstein  was 
murdered in 1964. )  Bert Brecht was in the bad habit of handing  off rights to 
anyone he favored for a time, with a result that there were many  cross claims 
about rights.  Lawyers got plenty rich as a result.  The  Blitzstein family were 
also responsible for helping Kurt Weill and Lenya get out  of Paris in 1936, 
and into New York, where he teamed up with Robert Sherwood  (later an FDR 
Speech Writer and editor of the Hopkins Papers -- see "Roosevelt  and Hopkins") to 
do the libretto for Knickerbocker Holiday, and then a string of  Broadway 
Musical hits.  His last work was "Cry the Beloved Country" an  adaptation of Alan 
Patton's novel about South Africa and the beginnings of  apartheid.   Antioch 
also got either first rights or very early rights  to do this work in the 
theatre, perhaps about 1962.  Some of the Blitzstein  correspondence with agents 
dealing with these rights led me to believe that it  could be that the Three 
Penny rights were sort of a packaged deal with Cry the  Beloved Country.  Not 
really all that clear.  Brecht or his agents  were in E. Germany, Lenya and 
Blitzstein in New York, everyone was lawyered up  and I am trying to trace through 
old letters and memo's.  Ugh.  You  know in later years I even went to E. 
Berlin to try to trace all this in the  Brecht Papers.  Then the guy I guessed 
was the Stasi Guy came around at the  archives --- very friendly bloke, who 
wanted to know why I was interested in all  this stuff.  I explained that these 
relationships went way back to the  pre-Hitler days, and that Blitzstein had 
been very engaged in helping the left  artists get out of Nazi Germany -- and 
some of the giving of rights actually had  to do with thank you efforts on behalf 
of those who got out.  He sat and  stared at me for a time -- and my little 
ID which was required on the table,  that said USA in huge letters, and finally 
he got up -- left, came back  with five more boxes of stuff, all of which was 
brand new to anyone.  It  was in one of those boxes that I found the memo 
from Blitzstein to Brecht  indicating that he hoped he would agree to offer 
rights to Antioch.  That  was just a few weeks before Brecht died in 1956.  When I 
pointed to the  Antioch Reference and more or less said -- Aah more 
Antiochiana -- the Stasi guy  asked what I meant, and I commented, well, I saw That 
production of Three  Penny.  In E. Germany they watched historical researchers 
like a  hawk.  But anyone who knew something about the process of saving the 
lives  of their old anti-Nazi artists, got the withheld extra boxes of history.  I 
 was most circumspect and did not tell him that Eleanor Roosevelt kept a hawk 
eye  on those visa applications, and did the requisite arm twisting at  
State.  A few years before the Wall Fell Down, the writing of minor chords  of 
history were still secret currency.  Of what worth such  secrets????
 
Well, I suspect some depressed Antiochians may remember -- there once was a  
time.........
 
 



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