An evening with texts by and about Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya

Berlin, Paris, New York – these cities play a very special role in Kurt Weill’s life. Even before the composer had to flee the German capital from the National Socialists, Weill was thinking about a change of location in search of new musical impulses. Both the special flair of these metropolises and the stylistic peculiarities of the respective countries found their way into his music. Weill was in every respect a cosmopolitan who made the cities in which he lived his musical home. At the same time, Berlin, Paris and New York are also places for his changeable relationship with Lotte Lenya. The actress and he met in Berlin in the Roaring Twenties, married, divorced during Weill's stay in Paris, only to get married again in New York. The evening Speak Low traces this special relationship and the fate of the two very special artistic personalities of the 20th century.

In addition to the well-known Berlin songs, unknown works from Kurt Weill's French and American creative periods will also be heard. Together with excerpts from the correspondence that Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill maintained throughout their lives, as well as contemporary texts, the result is a sensual testimony to a very special artistic relationship
between wanderlust and homesickness.