Der Jasager

Der Jasager (literally The Yes Sayer also translated as The Affirmer or He Said Yes) is an opera (specifically a Schuloper or "school-opera") by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht (after Elisabeth Hauptmann's translation from Arthur Waley's English version of the Japanese Nō drama Taniko).

Its companion piece is Der Neinsager (He Said No) although Brecht's other text was never set by Weill.

Weill also identifies the piece, following Brecht's development of the experimental form, as a Lehrstück, or "teaching-piece".^[1]

Performance history

It was first performed in Berlin by students of the Akademie für Kirchen und Schulmusik at the Zentralinstitut für Erziehung und Unterricht on 23 June 1930 and broadcast simultaneously on the radio. It was successful and there were over 300 performances during the following three years.

Brecht subsequently revised the text twice, the final version, including Der Neinsager, being without music.

Roles

Scene from a 1946 performance in Berlin

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 23 June 1930 (Conductor: Kurt Drabeck)
The boy	treble
The mother	mezzo-soprano
The teacher	baritone	Otto Hopf
First student	treble or tenor
Second student	treble or tenor
Third student	treble or baritone

References

Notes

↑ Weill says: "In Lindbergh's Flight Bert Brecht and I had the schools in mind for the first time. I am hoping to develop this direction further in my latest play, the Lehrstück He Said Yes. [...] I no longer want to offer 'songs' so much as self-contained musical forms. In the process I want to take over whatever I hitherto found right, like what I once termed the gestic approach to music. The melody must give clear expression to the gest. It is clarity, not lack of clarity that has to prevail in all that the composer wishes to express. And [...] this Lehrstück has to be a fully authentic work of art, not a secondary piece." (Weill 1930, p. 334)

Sources

Amadeus Almanac, accessed 31 October 2008
Hinton, Stephen. 1992. "Jasager, Der". In The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London:. ISBN 0-333-73432-7.
Squiers, Anthony. An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht: Revolution and Aesthetics. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 2014. ISBN 9789042038998.
Weill, Kurt. 1930. Interview. In Collected Plays: Three by Bertolt Brecht. Ed. and trans. John Willett. Brecht Collected Plays Ser. London: Methuen, 1997. ISBN 978-0-413-70460-3. pp. 334–335

External links

Media related to Der Jasager at Wikimedia Commons

Bertolt Brecht

Plays	Baal Drums in the Night A Wedding Driving Out a Devil Lux in Tenebris Mysteries of a Barbershop In the Jungle of Cities Edward II Man Equals Man Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer The Elephant Calf Little Mahagonny The Threepenny Opera The Flight Across the Ocean The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent Happy End Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Der Jasager / Der Neinsager The Decision Saint Joan of the Stockyards The Exception and the Rule The Mother Kuhle Wampe The Seven Deadly Sins Round Heads and Pointed Heads The Horatians and the Curiatians Fear and Misery of the Third Reich Señora Carrar's Rifles Life of Galileo How Much Is Your Iron? Dansen Mother Courage and Her Children The Trial of Lucullus Mr Puntila and his Man Matti The Good Person of Szechwan The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Hangmen Also Die! The Visions of Simone Machard The Duchess of Malfi Schweyk in the Second World War The Caucasian Chalk Circle Antigone The Days of the Commune The Tutor Die Verurteilung des Lukullus Report from Herrnburg Coriolanus Joan of Arc Turandot Don Juan Trumpets and Drums

Theories and techniques	Epic theatre Non-Aristotelian drama Lehrstücke Fabel Gestus Defamiliarization Demonstration Not / But Historicization Refunctioning Separation of the elements Interruptions Complex seeing The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre The Street Scene A Short Organum for the Theatre Messingkauf Dialogues

Works for the stage by Kurt Weill

Der Protagonist (1926)
Mahagonny-Songspiel (1927)
Der Zar lässt sich photographieren (1928)
The Threepenny Opera (1928)
Happy End (1929)
Der Lindberghflug (1929)
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930)
Der Jasager (1930)
Die Bürgschaft (1932)
Der Silbersee (1933)
The Seven Deadly Sins (1933)
Der Kuhhandel (1935)
Johnny Johnson (1936)
The Eternal Road (1937)
Knickerbocker Holiday (1938)
Lady in the Dark (1940)
One Touch of Venus (1943)
The Firebrand of Florence (1945)
Street Scene (1946)
Down in the Valley (1948)
Love Life (1948)
Lost in the Stars (1949)

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