Weill: The Tsar has his photograph taken

 Opera no 150

Weill: The Tsar has his photograph taken

Soloists

Cologne Radio Orchestra

Jan Latham Koenig

I thought that the most interesting thing about this opera was its title! This was one of the many operas suppressed by the Nazis and has only comparatively recently come back into circulations. I was expecting something like the music theatre of the threepenny opera but it seemed to me to rather dull most of the time in that German expressionist style which I fear does suck the life out of music. It was only in the last couple of numbers that, at least to me, the opera came to life and there was something more like the Kurt Weill that I was expecting. There were some interesting moments of musical effects including some use of non-instruments like mechanical doorbells (at least that is what I think they are) and an early use of a gramophone recording to be played on the stage as part of the performance. 

Some of the reviews of this opera speak very highly of it as an entertaining jazz infused piece which is delightfully absurd. Either I was in a bad mood or I was listening to a completely different piece - there’s no accounting for taste!