Lotte Lenya (1898-1981), Viennese Singer and Diseuse, and Long-Time Inspiration of Kurt Weil (1926-1950)

[The Hersch]

Lotte Lenya didn't have a beautiful voice. She had an incomparable gift. Her husband, the brilliant composer Kurt Weill, said that all of his melodies came to him first in her voice. Her voice embodied the mid-20th-century German Zeitgeist, and almost perfectly captured everything about the artistic fusion of the art of Weill with that of Bertolt Brecht. Here she sings "Surabaya Johnny" from the Brecht-Weill "Stí¼ck mit Musik" Happy-End. She remains an inescapably important chanteuse of the 20th century, maybe the most inescapable.

[darkstar965]

And, "She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963)."

Fairly "inescapable" in that capacity as well.

Source: Wikipedia

[The Hersch]

And, "She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963)."

I find it unfortunate, and really bloody unfair, that that one brief, silly film appearance seems to outweigh the rest of Lenya's illustrious career.

Here she sings "Bilbao Song" from Happy End. I posted a link to Catherine Sauvage singing a French version of this in her thread.

[The Hersch]

Here's a much younger Lenya, with a much higher vocal range, singing "Seeräuber Jenny" ("Pirate Jenny") from the 1931 film adaptation by the great G.W. Pabst of the Brecht-Weill Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera), a play with music. This could be taken as a recommendation for a film musical by those inclined so to take it.