Kurt Weill
The Tsar Has His Picture Taken

* Der Zar laesst sich photographieren

Soloists, Cologne Radio Choir, Cologne Radio Orchestra/Jan Latham-Koenig
Capriccio 60007-1

Summary for the Busy Executive: A rarity brought to light.

Yet another outstanding entry in Capriccio's heroic Kurt Weill series and
a major hole in Weill's recorded catalogue plugged.  Georg Kaiser, perhaps
Weill's favorite German collaborator (the Brecht collaboration, although
it produced terrific work, came with nettles and thorns), supplied the
libretto, and Weill subtitled the piece an "opera buffa." However, as with
Mozart, this hardly qualifies as a light-hearted romp.  Indeed, it features
the kind of humanistic ethical dilemma that attracted Weill again and
again.

In Mme. Angele's fashionable photography studio, the help make ready to
photograph the Tsar.  Suddenly, terrorists break in, replace Mme. Angele
and her employees with their own people, and put a gun, whose trigger
is attached to a length of rubber tubing and bulb, inside the camera.
Obviously, under the guise of photography, they plan to assassinate the
tsar, who arrives with his entourage.  Unfortunately, the tsar, in an
ordinary suit, turns out to be a very charming, flirtatious young man,
strongly attracted to the phony Angele.  Ordering his retinue out of the
studio, he confesses to her that his official role never allows him to get
close to anyone, and he's lonely.  He aspires to be a "man who strolls the
boulevards with other men, all his equals," and perhaps have a brief affair
in the most romantic of cities - the Paris of the travel posters.  He asks
that the picture show not the tsar, but the human being.  The despot seems
to see himself as a closet democrat, but this could be a ruse of seduction.
He asks for her friendship.  The false Angele faces an ethical pickle:
should she pull the trigger? She hesitates too long.  The young man,
sensing her unease, tries to calm her by playfully suggesting that,
first, he take her picture.  The only way she can stop him is to declare
passionate love.  At this point, the tsar's bodyguards enter to tell him
that they have uncovered a plot and that assassins are even now in the
building.  The real Angele and her staff are released, they decide to keep
mum about the murder attempt to avoid arrest, the camera is replaced again,
and the tsar, this time in full official regalia, finally has his picture
taken.

Beneath the farcical elements - notably the conventional comic
spanners that continually get thrown in the assassin's way - lies a
serious meditation on duty and social forms.  Total freedom is a delusion.
"Everyone must obey something," says the tsar.  He himself cannot be his
own master because "the tsar is only an idea." That is, no one obeys him
because of his personal qualities (as is shown by the fact that he can't
manipulate the assassin, no matter how much charm he turns on), but because
of the social position he holds.  Even so, the social position constricts
him.  When his personal danger becomes apparent, he can't get rid of his
bodyguards, even though he wants to be alone with the false Angele, and
furthermore he knows it.  These ideas seem to have occurred to the assassin
for the first time and more than a little stir her confusion.  If her
leader's rhetoric of "liberation" is an illusion, where does her duty lie?
To her cause? In her attraction to a charming man, not at all the monster
she thought? The opera leaves these questions unresolved.

Written in 1928, the musical idiom may surprise those expecting another
Dreigroschenoper.  First, the music is continuous, rather than chopped into
separate numbers.  Second, it lies closer to something like Weill's earlier
Violin Concerto, probably due to the fact that Kaiser and Weill began their
collaboration on this work in 1924.  Kaiser had trouble finishing the
libretto and suggested setting his play Der Protagonist instead.  Weill
did, to great success.  However, he may well have written some music for
Der Zar beforehand.  Technically, the work shares more than a little with
Busoni's Arlecchino, although the idiom (and the satire) stings more.  It's
Busoni's "puppet-play" opera turned to social commentary.  Weill does use
popular dance-band forms, but not in his familiar voice.  There are no
intended Schlaeger ("hits") - no "Mack the Knife" or "Bilbao-Song," for
example.  Nevertheless, we do see hints of the "mature" Weill, notably
devices that contribute to an ironic distance on the action.  A men's
chorus acts both in character (policemen, conspirators, entourage) and
as impersonal commentary.  In the original production, they dressed
identically in top hats, morning coats, and white beards - a parody of
embassy staff.  The trite farcical elements of the plot distance one as
well, as do the little orchestral fox-trots Weill sneaks in to accompany
the action.  The device in the forefront is a tango, known as the "Angele
Tango," which emanates from a record player, as the tsar and the beautiful
assassin flirt with one another.  Weill himself supervised the recording
session - after all, he thought of it as a theatrical element in the opera
- and was rather surprised, although pleased, when the number caught on
with the general public outside the theater.  It surprises me as well,
since it's not especially melodic, although highly effective as it
accompanies the onstage singers.

The performance stands among the better of the series.  The opera comes
over as genuine drama, for one thing.  Barry McDaniel does particularly
well as the tsar, striking one mainly as charming and a bit foolishly
romantic, rather than as a cynical would-be seducer.  Jan Latham-Koenig
keeps the music moving crisply.  The moment of the tango comes off as a
magnificent coup de theatre, and the sound is acceptable.  I complain only
that at forty-six minutes and change, the CD is a bit skimpy.  There are
many unrecorded short pieces by Weill they could have used to fill out the
disc.  Still, kudos for a fine recording of a rarity, even to Kurt Weill
fans like me.

Steve Schwartz