News Of the Day 1961

Synopsis
Artists

Hindemith’s comic work…

…contemporary with Weill’s Threepenny Opera, also combines elements of musical revue, vaudeville, cabaret humor and social satire in a parable about publicity and modern image-makers.

Music By

Paul Hindemith

Libretto By

Marcellus Schiffer

English Translation By

Don Moreland

Act I

Laura and Edward, famous socialites, return home from their honeymoon. A violent quarrel breaks out and they decide to get divorced. Miss Pick, a reporter, enters unexpectedly. She quickly grasps the situation and snaps their picture for a possible news story. Laura and Edward then go to a divorce bureau to secure the necessary papers but are refused on the basis of having insufficient grounds.

Two other couples, newly divorced, recommend an agency which helped them – Universal Services, Inc., an international business firm directed by Mr. Dodo. At Pick’s persuasion Dodo agrees to help them in the person of Mister Herman, an extremely handsome young man skilled in furnishing legitimate grounds for divorce.

The Venus Salle in the Museum is chosen as a rendezvous. While Laura and Herman are rehearsing certain amorous preliminaries, Edward discovers them. Believing the “other man” would be old and ugly, he is enraged to find the handsome Herman. In a jealous fury, he smashes the Venus. A public scandal results and he is imprisoned. Laura seeks refuge in a hotel where she is shocked to find Herman in her bathtub eagerly offering further assistance. The ever-ready Pick snaps the scene and the scandal increases.

Act II

Mr. Dodo then offers to pay Edward’s bail and reunite the couple but only under the condition that they agree to star in a revue financed by him and designed to exploit their notoriety. They consent and immediately a huge publicity campaign and tour is arranged. The show is an international success and Edward and Laura become famous celebrities. Ultimately, however, they realize their mistake and seek to escape from the infernal machine of publicity and the press. Dodo thereupon creates a new couple to replace them. As Laura and Edward return to their private lives, the tide of publicity rushes ever onward.