This album by operatic soprano Carole Farley is somewhat mistitled; few of the songs are in the first rank of pop standards, and indeed the album's most noteworthy feature is that it includes four world premieres of songs by Kurt Weill, uncovered by Farley herself. To take the obvious first question first, this collection is worth purchasing for the new Weill songs alone. None is less than intriguing. Weill's control, in the brief The Romance of a Lifetime, of the universe of possibility contained in a flirtatious glance on ...
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This album by operatic soprano Carole Farley is somewhat mistitled; few of the songs are in the first rank of pop standards, and indeed the album's most noteworthy feature is that it includes four world premieres of songs by Kurt Weill, uncovered by Farley herself. To take the obvious first question first, this collection is worth purchasing for the new Weill songs alone. None is less than intriguing. Weill's control, in the brief The Romance of a Lifetime, of the universe of possibility contained in a flirtatious glance on the street is exquisite. And The River Is So Blue, written for the 1937 film of the same name, is a nifty small-scale example of Weill's attraction to literary texts. The words by Ann Ronell take the slightest of romantic topics -- a pleasant boat ride with a sweetheart on a lagoon -- and just slightly elevate the language beyond moon/June territory: "Oh Love, the river is so blue today -- it calls for us to live." Weill responds with a melody that can only be called ravishingly...
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