I think you are a bit off base here. How is a company like the Seattle Shakespear Company supposed to pay for the rights for a new translation of the Brecht/Weile piece? I think you are expecting a bit much.

The Blitzenstein version is indeed a hollow construction compaired to the original German but it is what we have at the moment. I first encountered a Portland Civic Lite Opera production the summer of 1960 and enjoyed it very much. I was 15 at the time. Within a year I bought a recording of the German version with Lotta Lenya, the original Jenny the Pirate. The music is simply amazing and compelling. The original German text is indeed sharp edged. To say it has a bite is an understatement.

But the truth is that it is better to introduce an American audience to this wimpy, watered down version because most locals simply would not appreciate or handle the original right from the box. A little water will make the pill go down better. Maybe a few will even seek out the original German as a result.

I have to second DC's point. First of all, Threepenny Opera is still under copyright; I assume also that the holder of its world English or U.S. English translation rights would not likely allow a new translation to be done at an affordable price. It would be costly to acquire these rights from that entity and/or from the German copyright holder (I believe it's the Kurt Weill Foundation). Secondly, the cost to commission a great new translation of this length would run anywhere from $5000 to $10000, depending on the level of experience of the translator. An academic translator would probably need at least a year to prepare the translation, which would be less expensive, although a full-time literary translator might be able to do it much faster but at a much higher cost. It might be possible to solicit support from the Goethe Institute for something like this, but the red tape involved would also be very time-consuming.

A second point I'd like to make is that it's not really much of a review to say that the version performed is different from (and subjectively worse than) the original German. Really? Du meine Güte! Shocking! Much of this review is actually 50 years out of date since it is mainly a critique of a 1950s translation, not of this 2011 production and reinterpretation of that translation. On today's actual production, what should have been the focus of this review, not much is said.

Brecht is occasionally performed in German in North America, and Seattle has no shortage of performers who could pull that off, to say nothing of theater-goers who can understand German, so I'd like to encourage the Intiman and other houses to consider doing German-language productions at some point, although performance rights, again, might be costly.

As my father used to say when I voiced opinions about something I knew nothing about, "Wass you dere Charlie?" I was there for the original production at the Theatre de Lys with Lotte Lenya as Jenny. As Weill's widow, she supervised the production and approved of the lyrics and music.
Seeing, hearing Lenya sing Pirate Jenny remainds the most vivd memory I have of any moment in 60 years of theatre going. She mesmerized the audience and I hung on every word, gesture, and nuance. What Holden and Alice Koderlin miss by not having been there, is how the music played by a small orchestra of hand organ, tinny piano, and drums played gritty counterpoint to the lyrics which were sung as satire of typical Broadway happy musicals. Yes, this was lacking in the Seattle production which as my wife, who also saw the Theatre de Lys production, said was too pretty, polished, perfect. Off Broadway theatre in itself was gritty and run down in its beginnings and we loved it in reaction to the slick Broadway theatre. Never mind the academic stuff about translation and the Eric Bentley carping about authentic Brecht. Theatre changes with every new production and every night--you never step in the same river twice with live perfromances. People who see this production and have never had the experience of seeing the Lenya de Lys version will enjoy this very professional and polished production and not miss the grit. That's theatre. And by the way, you saw remarkable performances by Jerick Hoffer who stole the show every time he stepped onstage. His performances in itself are worth seeing this production for. by Herbsun