About the work
Kurt Weill wrote the music for this musical, with book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, loosely based on Washington Irving’s satirical “A History of New York”. It premiered on 19 October 1938 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, directed by Joshua Logan, with Walter Huston as Peter Stuyvesant.
Plot
In Amsterdam in the year 1647, young Brom Broeck discovers that councilman Tienhoven is illegally selling weapons and brandy to Native Americans, and is sentenced to death for exposing him. The newly arrived governor Peter Stuyvesant ultimately pardons him after chronicler Washington Irving reminds him that history judges harsh rulers poorly; Brom is then free to marry Tienhoven’s daughter Tina.
Cultural significance
Maxwell Anderson intended the piece as a satire of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the concentration of government power. The score includes “September Song”, sung by Walter Huston, which became one of the most widely recorded American songs of the 20th century.