With the rise of national socialism, their productions were increasingly attacked. Even though Weill’s operas continued to enjoy popular success, Nazi protests routinely interrupted their performances and theatre directors became more loath to stage his work. Just like many other artists in his predicament, Weill repeatedly misjudged the political developments and believed that things would get better already. When he finally discovered that he and his wife were officially blacklisted by the Nazis and were to be arrested, he travelled to France in March 1933, in the hope that his stay in Paris would only be temporary. There, he collaborated with Brecht for one last time on the ballet The Seven Deadly Sins.
Weill’s oeuvre did not end with his exile from Germany, nor did his career draw to a close with the end of his collaboration with Brecht. In September 1935, Weill moved to New York with his wife, became a naturalised citizen in 1943 and allegedly refused, despite his broken English, to converse with his wife in German, the language of the perpetrators’.
Where does he go from here?
This emotional break was accompanied by a stylistic one. The first couple of years in the US were a struggle for him, his plays did not meet expectations and the couple had trouble supporting themselves. It was only in 1938 that Weill gained access to the Broadway theatre scene with his musical Knickerbocker Holiday written with playwright Maxwell Anderson. He worked with Ira Gershwin on the film Where do we go from here? and the musical Lady in the Dark, a rare popular exploration of psychoanalysis at the time. Unique among Broadway composers of the time, Weill insisted on composing his orchestrations himself.
