Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein

Theodor Adorno famously proclaimed that the model of Kurt Weill could not be repeated. Yet Weill''s stage works set an inescapable precedent for composers on both sides of the Atlantic. Rebecca Schmid explores how Weill''s formal innovations in particular laid the groundwork for operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein, although both composers resisted or downplayed his aesthetic contribution to American tradition. Comparative analysis based on Harold Bloom''s Anxiety of Influence and other modes of intertextuality reveals that the principles of Weill''s opera reform would catalyze an indigenous movement in sophisticated, socially engaged music theatre.

Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein: A Study of Influence focuses on works that represent different phases of Weill''s mission to renew the genre of opera, evolving from Die Dreigrosche