Happy End, the 1929 musical by Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann, comes to Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center for one night on Thursday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $50.
It is the New York premiere of a new English version, co-presented by Kaufman Music Center, the Glimmerglass Festival and Opera Saratoga. The production comes out of a touring partnership between Glimmerglass, Opera Saratoga, Finger Lakes Opera and the Seagle Festival, which took it to venues across New York State and Western Massachusetts this year.
Mary Birnbaum, artistic and general director of Opera Saratoga, directs. Glimmerglass dramaturg Kelley Rourke wrote the new English book, which keeps all of the original songs in Michael Feingold’s English lyrics and runs 90 minutes without an intermission. Rob Ainsley, artistic and general director of Glimmerglass, is music director, with players from the Manhattan School of Music’s jazz program.
Ana Karneža, the 2024 winner of the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya Competition and a graduate of Juilliard’s drama division, plays The Fly, the shadowy boss of a Chicago gang whose speakeasy crosses paths with a Salvation Army mission.
The score includes “Bilbao Song,” “Mandalay Song” and “Surabaya Johnny.” Birnbaum has described the piece as “an unlikely love story wrapped in a gangster comedy, set in a bar at the end of the world.”
Merkin Hall is at 129 West 67th Street. Tickets are on Kaufman Music Center’s website.
