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Lotte Lenya’s papers are housed in the Weill/Lenya Archives of the Yale University Music Library (New Haven, CT) and the Weill-Lenya Research Center (7 East 20th Street, New York, NY). Finding aids for both collections have been published and are available from the respective institutions.

Works by Lenya or Incorporating Her Own Words

Lenya, the legend: a pictorial autobiography, edited by David Farneth. New York: Overlook Press, 1998. Lenya’s own words, from interviews, correspondence, and fragments of her attempts at a memoir, are arranged to give a chronological account of her life and art. Illustrated with over 300 photographs, many from her private collection.

Lotte Lenya: Eine Autobiographie in Bildern, zusammengestellt und herausgegeben von David Farneth. Köln: Könemann, 1999. German version of Lenya, the legend, translated by Helmut Roß.

Weill, Kurt and Lotte Lenya. Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, ed. & trans. Lys Symonette & Kim H. Kowalke. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1996. A composite of Lenya’s attempts at autobiography is included as the prologue and a biographical account of her career after Weill’s death comprises its Epilogue.

Weill, Kurt and Lotte Lenya. Sprich leise wenn Du Liebe sagst: Der Briefwechsel Kurt Weill/Lotte Lenya, herausgegeben und übersetzt von Lys Symonette und Kim H. Kowalke. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1998. German translation of Speak low (when you speak love).

“Von Hietzing ins Raimundtheater.” In Mein Film no. 331 (April? 1932), p. 8.

“That Was a Time!” In Theatre Arts 40.5 (May 1956), p. 78-80, 92-93. Reprinted as the foreword to the Grove Press edition of Desmond Vesey and Eric Bentley’s translation of The Threepenny Opera (1964). Written by George Davis based on interviews with Lenya and Elisabeth Hauptmann.

“Kurt Weill’s Universal Appeal.” In Music Journal 17.1 (January 1959), p. 48, 77-78.

“I Remember Mahagonny.” In Philips Music Herald 4.1 (Spring 1959), p. 6-9. (Also printed in the booklet accompanying the Philips recording of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny in 1958 (both German and English releases).

“The Time Is Ripe.” In Playbill 6.16 (April 16, 1962), p. 7-11, 43.

“Weill’s Music Is Timeless.” In New York Daily News, January 28, 1973 (an appreciation of the revue Kurt Weill from Berlin to Broadway).

Works about Lenya

Bakos, Eva. “Verstörende Betörung: Lotte Lenya.” In Wilde Wienerinnen: Leben zwischen Tabu und Freiheit. Wien: Ueberreuter, 1999.

Beams, David. “Lotte Lenya.” In Theatre Arts 46.6 (June 1962): 11-18, 66-72.

Bergman, David. “Lotte Lenya: Divine Weltschmerz.” In My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, ed. Michael Montlack. Madison : Terrace Books, 2009, p. 40-42.

Borwick, Susan. “Perspectives on Lenya: Through the Looking Glass.” In Opera Quarterly 5.4 (Winter 1987-88): 21-36.

Gavin, Barrie and Kim H. Kowalke. Lenya: ein erfundenes Leben (Frankfurt: Hessischer Rundfunk, 1994) (videotape).

Hörner, Unda. 1929: Frauen im Jahr Babylon. Berlin: Ebersbach & Simon, 2020.

Katz, Pamela. Die Seeräuberin: ein Lotte-Lenya-Roman. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 2001.

Katz, Pamela. The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the Brink. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2015.

Kowalke, Kim H. “Lenya, Lotte.” In American National Biography, vol. 22, p. 485-487 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Ley, Ulrike und Susanne Sander. “Johanna Blamauer – Lotte Lenya.” In Zwischen Liebe und Konflikte: Mütter und Töchter. München: Knesebeck, 2010.

Lynch, Richard. “For the Record–Lotte Lenya.” In Show Music 5.2 (November 1986), 32-35.

Marx, Henry, ed. Weill-Lenya. New York : Goethe House, 1976 (catalogue of the “Weill-Lenya Exhibition” at New York Public Library in 1976).

Mordden, Ethan. Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. New York : St. Martin’s, 2012.

Neiss, Eva. Lotte Lenya und das Lied des Lebens. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2020.

Nemser, Cindy, ed. “Lotte Lenya and Ruth Gikow on Art, Theater, Life . . .”. In The Feminist Art Journal 5.4 (Winter 1976-77), p. 20-21.

Olesen, Anne-Marie. “Sørøver-Jenny.” In Klassisk Musik, January 2003, p. 22-26.

Praschl, Peter. “Hoppla, Jenny!” In Stern 42.32 (August 16, 1989), p. 66-74.

Reed, Rex. “Lotte Lenya.” In Do You Sleep in the Nude? (New York : New American Library, 1968), p. 82-94.

Rorem, Ned. “Lotte Lenya.” In A Ned Rorem Reader (New Haven : Yale, 2001), p. 137-141.

Rosteck, Jens. Zwei auf einer Insel: Lotte Lenya und Kurt Weill. Berlin: Propyläen, 1999.

Southern, Terry. “The Beautiful-Ugly Art of Lotte Lenya.” In Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern, ed. Southern and Friedman (New York: Grove Press, 2001), p. 147-152. (Originally published in Glamour, September 1962.)

Spoto, Donald. Lenya: A Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

Stern, Guy. “Lotte Lenya’s Creative Interpretation of Brecht.” In Brecht Unbound, ed. James Lyon & Hans-Peter Breuer (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1995), p. 101-118.

—–. “Sporadische Heimkehr: Lotte Lenyas Besuche des Elternhauses und bei Wiener Verlegern.” In Eine Schwierige Heimkehr: Oesterreichische Literatur im Exil 1938-1945, ed. Johan Holzner, Sigurd Scheichl & Wolfgang Wiesmueller (Innsbruck: Institut für Germanistik, 1991), p. 314-321.

—–. “Woman with a Mission.” In The Theatre (July 1959), p. 12-13, 44-45.

Terkel, Studs. “Lotte Lenya.” In The Spectator (New York: The New Press, 1999), p. 233-39.

Wadsworth, Stephen. “Zeitgeist.” In Opera News 44.6 (December 1, 1979), p. 16-20, 43.

Weaver, Neal. “‘Lenya, Whatever You Do Is Epic Enough for Me!’–B. Brecht: An Interview with Lotte Lenya.” In After Dark 11.3 (July 1969), p.32-41.

Biographies and critical studies of Kurt Weill necessarily also deal with aspects of Lenya’s career. The most informative of these are David Drew, Kurt Weill: A Handbook (1987), Jürgen Schebera, Kurt Weill: An Illustrated Life (1995), Stephen Hinton, ed., The Threepenny Opera (Cambridge Opera Handbooks, 1990) and Kim H. Kowalke, ed., A New Orpheus: Essays on Kurt Weill (1986).

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