The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper)

The census is wrong on two counts and both should be corrected on the record. (1) The song texts were not a Universal-Edition Vienna publication: 'Die Songs der Dreigroschenoper' was published by Gustav Kiepenheuer, Potsdam, 1928 — a small twelvemo pamphlet of the song texts only, in original printed wrappers, printed by the Hoboken-Presse in Charlottenburg, distributed to the audience at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm to mark the production's 100th performance, alongside a separate widely distributed public issue. (2) The full play text did not first appear in Versuche 3 in 1931 — it first appeared in the 1928 Universal-Edition Textbuch described above. Versuche Heft 3 (Versuche 8–10), Gustav Kiepenheuer, Berlin — dated 1931 but actually issued in January 1932 per the Kurt Weill Foundation — contains a substantially revised libretto together with 'Die Beule' and 'Der Dreigroschenprozeß'. It is the first appearance of the revised 1931 text (the version most modern editions descend from, and one not licensed for performance until 1949), which makes it a major first thus, not the first edition of the work. The census is right that all English editions are postwar.