German Lieder music has taken on a broader meaning through common usage than its strict textbook definition. Many now think of it as anything Lotte Lenya might have performed, including jazz standards, rather than just Romantic-style classical music for voice with Spartan piano accompaniment. Nelly Lenz was definitely part of that tradition when she was a popular chanteuse on the Weimar scene. That alone would have caused her plenty of trouble with the National Socialists, but Lenz is also Jewish.
After months of hiding, Lenz was discovered and condemned to a concentration camp, perhaps due to her beloved husband’s betrayal. Having somehow survived, Lenz will seek the truth, no matter how painful it will be, in Christian Petzold’s “Phoenix” (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, at the IFC Center.
