Lenya, Lotte [key], 1898–1981, Viennese singer and character actress, b. Karoline Blamauer. The wife of the composer Kurt Weill, Lenya was the foremost singer of his songs. She and Weill fled Germany in 1933 to work in the United States, where she appeared in The Threepenny Opera (as Jenny, a role she created in Berlin), Brecht on Brecht, Mahagonny, and Cabaret. Lenya also made recordings and films (including The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, 1961, and From Russia with Love, 1963).
See the letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, ed. by L. Symonette (1997); E. Mordden, Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya (2012).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Theater: Biographies
