Description
Book SynopsisWhen German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill arrived in the United States in 1935, he found a nation nothing like he imagined. This book tells the full story of Weill as outsider-turned-insider, showing how he was keenly attuned to the difficult relationship America had with her immigrants but was slower to grasp the subtleties of race relations.
Trade ReviewScholars will appreciate the authoritative, well-documented information in this text. * J. E. Druesedow Jr., CHOICE *
Naomi Graber deftly guides the reader through the changing cultural terrain of the two Americas that shaped Weill's career. As a composer in 1920s Germany, he promoted the fashionable "Americanism" of the time, caught allegorically between utopian hope and dystopian dread. As an émigré who managed to escape that dread for a career that included writing hits for Broadway, he saw his adopted country as a place where he could continue his oeuvre-defining aims of reconciling individual needs and the collective imperatives of modernity. * Stephen Hinton, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University *
Naomi Graber utilizes the lens of Weill's engagement with an imagined 'Amerika' of the Weimar Germany and then the real America he encountered firsthand after 1935. This allows her to situate Weill's output in nuanced cultural context while illuminating how Weill's experience as 'outsider-turned-insider' gave him a unique voice on both sides of the Atlantic. * Kim H. Kowalke, President, Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and Professor Emeritus, University of Rochester *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Weill's America, America's Weill Chapter 2: Shifting Paradigms: Experiments in German and U.S. Alchemy Chapter 3: For the People: Folk Music Chapter 4: Living History: American History and World War II Chapter 5: Alienation and Integration: Gender and Sexuality Chapter 6: Israel in Egypt: Race and Ethnicity Conclusion Index
