The Silver Lake

Though best known for his brilliant and bitter collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill was a serious composer with deep social convictions. The Silver Lake – A Winter’s Tale (Der Silbersee), his last work in Germany, was a collaboration with the poetic playwright Georg Kaiser. It was closed down by the Nazi authorities in 1933, and it was not performed for many years. For many, it is his masterpiece.

In numbers like “The Ballad of Caesar’s Death” and “The Song of the Lottery Ticket Seller”, there is sharp satire of the right, the left and the national socialist. But this is a piece about those who are left behind in the fighting for position – the poor man driven to steal a pineapple, the poor relation who is passed from house to house, the policeman with principles, the starving people who at the very beginning of the show are busy burying Hunger itself.

At its heart are three rich characters: the thief, the policeman, and the girl called Fennimore. Around them is a bizarre gallery of opportunists, thugs and aristocrats. Somehow the three lovable characters survive a “winter’s tale” that could not be more appropriate to modern Britain – and Fennimore’s song leads the two new friends to a new life, across a frozen lake.

Conducted by Weill specialist James Holmes, and directed by ETO’s James Conway, The Silver Lake – A Winter’s Tale (Der Silbersee) promises to be a compelling, poetic night in the theatre, graced with astonishing music.

Sung in German with English narration and English surtitles