Weill and Anderson set to work fashioning Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country into a musical tragedy within weeks of its momentous publication. This story of life in South Africa under apartheid stirred generations to action, and was the basis for a beautiful, brooding, dramatic musical that produced not only the immortal title song, but an entire score that pulses with the life of a people. Lost in the Stars opened at the Music Box Theater on October 30, 1949, and played 281 performances. It was Weill’s last completed work before his death in 1950.