Wanted / Písně Kurta Weilla - CD

Dagmar Pecková’s album of Kurt Weill songs brings together pieces including “Surabaya Johnny,” “Youkali,” “Der Abschiedsbrief,” “Berlin im Licht,” “Das Lied von den braunen Inseln,” “Zuhälterballade,” “Die Seeräuber-Jenny,” “Barbarasong,” “Je ne t’aime pas,” “Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man,” “Alabama Song,” “Buddy on the Nightshift,” “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” “Kanonensong” and “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer.” Pecková performs with Jiří Hájek, Jan Kučera, the Epoque Quartet & Orchestra and the Miroslav Hloucal Jazz Band, conducted by Jan Kučera. In 1926, Weill wrote that opera could not be approached through snobbish rejection, and that artists had to fill the stage with their own ideal. This marked the beginning of his search for a new musical genre to replace classical opera. The success of The Threepenny Opera confirmed his direction, combining a simplified musical language with influences from popular music and jazz and transferring vocal roles to actors without classical training. Weill’s adventurous journey from Germany through Paris to New York lasted fifty years and brought a genuine revolution. It is a natural challenge for Pecková, an internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano associated with Mozart, Mahler and Bizet’s Carmen, yet never satisfied with academicism or empty form. Her long-held dream of recording Weill’s songs became reality twenty-five years after she played the leading female role in the Stuttgart Opera production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The result combines Weill’s distinctive poetic style, a tightly playing band and arrangements balancing classical music and jazz with Pecková’s wholehearted interpretation.