Lotte Lenya (born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer; 18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse,[1] and actress, long based in the United States.

In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a jaded aristocrat in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961).

In 1922, Lenya was seen by her future husband, German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill, during an audition for his first stage score Zaubernacht, but because of his position behind the piano, she did not see him.

[3] [Note 1] With the rise of Nazism in Germany, many artists were not appreciated, and although not Jewish, she left the country, having become estranged from Weill.

In March 1933, she moved to Paris, where she sang the leading part in Brecht-Weill's "sung ballet", The Seven Deadly Sins.

[7][8] Here, Green and Weill wrote the script and music for the controversial Broadway play Johnny Johnson, which was titled after the most frequently occurring name on the American casualty list of World War I.

[11] In 1956, she won a Tony Award for her role as Jenny in Marc Blitzstein's English version of The Threepenny Opera, the only time an off-Broadway performance has been so honored.

When she was to sing the soprano parts in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and The Seven Deadly Sins, the music needed transposition to substantially lower keys.

[16][17] Her role as Vivien Leigh's earthy friend Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales in the screen version of Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) brought Lenya Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as Best Supporting Actress.

[18] In 1963, she was cast as the SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love starring Sean Connery and Robert Shaw.

[citation needed] Lenya and Weill did not meet properly until 1924 through a mutual acquaintance, the writer Georg Kaiser.

[26] The Lotte Lenya Competition recognizes young singers and actors who are dramatically and musically convincing in repertoire ranging from opera and operetta to contemporary Broadway scores, with a focus on the works of Kurt Weill.