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Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars Returns to Its Roots; Kurt Weill Edition Wins Two Paul Revere Awards

Nov. 02, 2011

Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars Returns to Its Roots; Kurt Weill Edition Wins Two Paul Revere Awards

“Though it is a story of the ages, wrestling issues of biblical dimensions, Lost in the Starsis a simple story of the human heart—one of heartbreak and intolerance as well as truth, reconciliation, compassion, and finally, moral transformation.” This is how Emmy Award-nominated Tazewell Thompson describes Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s “musical tragedy,” which he is directing in the country that inspired it at South Africa’s Cape Town Opera on November 24 - 27. Lost in the Stars is a co-production with the Glimmerglass Festival, where it will be presented next summer (July 22 – August 25, 2012), starring Eric Owens as Stephen Kumalo and Sean Panikkar as the Leader. Albert Horne will conduct in Cape Town; John DeMain in Cooperstown.

Based on Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country, Lost in the Stars gives passionate voice to Paton’s powerful, uncompromising social indictment of apartheid South Africa. The stirring story is of two aging men—a black country parson and a separatist white British planter—who are brought together by a shared grief. The parson’s faith is tested by his wayward son’s unintentional shooting of the planter’s son, while the planter ultimately acquires faith through the same tragedy. With a heartbreaking score that includes “Stay Well,” “Lost in the Stars,” “Trouble Man,” and “The Little Grey House,” Lost in the Stars lays bare the tragedy of social barriers among all people, yet it ends with a deeply moving promise of reconciliation and hope for the future.

Each year the Music Publishers Association of the United States confers Paul Revere Awards for outstanding examples of graphic design in music publishing. The most recent volume in the Kurt Weill Edition, Music with Solo Violin, received two 2011 Paul Revere Awards: the Critical Report won 1st Prize for Book Design in Educational Folios; and the score won 2nd Prize for Full Score Music Notesetting. The Kurt Weill Edition is published by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and European American Music Corporation. The next volume to be published is Johnny Johnson, a play with music composed in 1936, edited by Tim Carter. It will be available in early 2012.

Individual songs from Lost in the Stars may be licensed through European American Music.

For more information on Lost in the Stars, visit www.kwf.org.

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