''Mahagonny, ein Songspiel'', or ''Mahagonny, a song-play'', was written by composer
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
and dramatist
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
and first performed with that title and description in 1927.
Elisabeth Hauptmann
Elisabeth Hauptmann (20 June 1897, Peckelsheim, Westphalia, German Empire – 20 April 1973, East Berlin) was a German writer who worked with fellow German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht.
She got to know Brecht in 1922, the same year ...
contributed the words to two of its songs. Just under half an hour in length, the work can be thought of as a staged or scenic
cantata. By the end of 1929, however, ''Mahagonny'' had grown into a two-hour
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
with the title ''Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny'', or ''Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny''. This was premiered in March 1930. Today the cantata and the opera are considered separately, the latter holding a place in the repertory, the former being an occasional piece staged in small theaters or programmed as an outgrowth of a song recital when resources permit. For this reason the shorter work is ''informally'' referred to as ''Das kleine Mahagonny'', or ''The Little Mahagonny'', or as ''Mahagonny-Songspiel''.
Background
Weill was commissioned in the spring to write one of a series of very short operas for performance that summer, and he chose to use the opportunity to create a "stylistic exercise" as preparation for a larger project he and Brecht had begun to develop together (the two had met for the first time in March): the experimental '
epic opera' ''
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
''Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'' (german: Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, links=no) is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It was first performed on 9 March 1930 at the i ...
''.
[Willett and Manheim (1994, xvi-xvii, 358).]
Genesis of the work began with five ''Mahagonny Songs'' published early in 1927 in Brecht's collection of poetry called ''
Devotions for the Home'', or ''Hauspostille'', together with tunes by him. To these was added ''Poem on a Dead Man'', which would become the cantata's Finale. Two numbers were English-language parodies by
Elisabeth Hauptmann
Elisabeth Hauptmann (20 June 1897, Peckelsheim, Westphalia, German Empire – 20 April 1973, East Berlin) was a German writer who worked with fellow German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht.
She got to know Brecht in 1922, the same year ...
: the ''
Alabama Song'' and the ''Benares Song''. Using one or two of Brecht's melodies, Weill began in May to set the songs to music and to compose instrumental interludes. The result was a sequence of eleven numbers:
Song One , Little March , Alabama Song , Vivace , Song Two , Vivace assai , Benares Song , Sostenuto (Choral) , Song Three , Vivace assai , Finale: Poem on a Dead Man
[Willett and Manheim (1994, 358)]
''Mahagonny, ein Songspiel'' premiered at the new German chamber music festival at
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...
on 17 July 1927. Brecht
directed
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''D ...
,
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya (born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer; 18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best ...
played Jessie, and the
set-design was by
Caspar Neher Caspar Neher (born Rudolf Ludwig Caspar Neher; 11 April 1897 – 30 June 1962) was an Austrian-German scenographer and librettist, known principally for his career-long working relationship with Bertolt Brecht.
Neher was born in Augsburg. He ...
, who placed the scene in a boxing-ring before background projections that interjected scene-titles at the start of each section.
[Sacks (1994, xix) and Willett and Manheim (1994, xvi, 358-9).] According to a sketch published years later, they read:
# The great cities in our day are full of people who do not like it there.
# So get away to Mahagonny, the gold town situated on the shores of consolation far from the rush of the world.
# Here in Mahagonny life is lovely.
# But even in Mahagonny there are moments of nausea, helplessness and despair.
# The men of Mahagonny are heard replying to God's inquiries as to the cause of their sinful life.
# Lovely Mahagonny crumbles to nothing before your eyes.
[Quoted by Willett and Manheim (1994, 359)]
A programme note for the performance stated:
''Mahagonny'' is a short epic play which simply draws conclusions from the irresistible decline of our existing social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
es. It is already turning towards a public which goes to the theatre naïvely and for fun."[Quoted by Willett (1967, 29).]
The production lasted about forty-five minutes and was a great success, although there were no immediate plans for a revival.[Willett (1967, 29).]
Stephen Sondheim was asked to translate this piece once with
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
, but declined. He said of this event, "But, I'm not a Brecht/Weill fan and that's really all there is to it. I'm an apostate: I like Weill's music when he came to America better than I do his stuff before...I love The Threepenny Opera but, outside of The Threepenny Opera, the music of his I like is the stuff he wrote in America—when he was not writing with Brecht, when he was writing for Broadway."
Performance history
After its first performance in 1927 with the Deutsches Kammermusikfest under the direction of
Walter Brügmann and conducted by
Ernst Mehlich, it was presented on 11 December 1932 in Paris at the
Salle Gaveau
The Salle Gaveau, named after the French piano maker Gaveau, is a classical concert hall in Paris, located at 45-47 rue La Boétie, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It is particularly intended for chamber music.
Construction
The plans for ...
.
Hans Curjel
Hans Richard Curjel (1 May 1896 in Karlsruhe, Germany - 3 January 1974 in Zürich, Switzerland) was a Swiss art historian, conductor and theatre director.
Education
Curjel attended Humboldt School in Berlin and studied music before changing to ...
directed and
Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel (January 6, 1903 – September 22, 1993) was an American classical music conductor. He is remembered as the conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years.
Life
Abravanel was born in Salonika, Rumelia Eyalet, Otto ...
was conductor.
Years later, ''The Little Mahagonny'' was produced, in a much adapted version, by the
Berliner Ensemble
The Berliner Ensemble () is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langho ...
at the
Theater am Schiffbauerdamm
The ''Theater am Schiffbauerdamm'' () is a theatre building at the ''Schiffbauerdamm'' riverside in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany, opened on 19 November 1892. Since 1954, it has been home to the Berliner Ensemble theatre company, founde ...
in
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
. It opened on 10 February 1963 and was directed by
Matthias Langhoff Matthias is a name derived from the Greek Ματθαίος, in origin similar to Matthew.
People
Notable people named Matthias include the following:
In religion:
* Saint Matthias, chosen as an apostle in Acts 1:21–26 to replace Judas Iscariot
...
and
Manfred Karge
Manfred Karge (born March 1, 1938 in Brandenburg an der Havel) is a German dramatist. He is best known among English-speaking audiences for the staging of Brecht's "Mann ist Mann" (1926) as ''Man to Man''.
From 1958 to 1961 he studied at the Berl ...
.
On 20 January 1971 the
Yale Repertory Theater
Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of Yale School of Drama, in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented student ...
in
New Haven
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
presented the work directed by
Michael Posnick
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
and conducted by
Thomas Fay in a double-bill with Brecht & Weill's ''The Seven Deadly Sins''.
Other notable productions included one by the
English National Opera
English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English ...
on 8 September 1984, conducted by
Lionel Friend; the
Brooklyn Academy of Music
The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...
's production by
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars (born September 27, 1957) is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where ...
, conducted by
Craig Smith; and, as part of the 12-hour concert, ''Wall-to-Wall Kurt Weill'', on 30 March 1989 at
Symphony Space in New York.
Twenty-first century productions took place on 25 March 2000 in New York by the
Ensemble Weill directed by
Ari Benjamin Meyers
Ari Benjamin Meyers (born 1972 in New York) is an American artist and composer.
Meyers received his training as a composer and conductor at the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Peabody Institute. His practice includes creating musical pe ...
and on 5 and 7 June 2008, the
Seattle Symphony
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra also serves as the accompanying orchestra for the Seattle Opera.
History
Beginnings
The orchestr ...
under
Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947), also known as Gerry Schwarz or Jerry Schwarz, is an American symphony conductor and trumpeter. As of 2019, Schwarz serves as the Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony and the Director of Orche ...
performed the piece.
Recordings
*
London Sinfonietta
The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London.
The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert in 1968—givi ...
, conducted by
David Atherton
David Atherton (born 3 January 1944) is an English conductor and founder of the London Sinfonietta.
Background
Atherton was born in Blackpool, Lancashire into a musical family. He was educated at Blackpool Grammar
School. His father, Robert ...
, with Mary Thomas,
Meriel Dickinson,
Philip Langridge
Philip Gordon Langridge (16 December 1939 – 5 March 2010)Millington (7 March 2010) was an English tenor, considered to be among the foremost exponents of English opera and oratorio.
Early life
Langridge was born in Hawkhurst, Kent, educ ...
,
Ian Partridge
Ian Partridge (born 12 June 1938) is a retired English lyric tenor, whose repertoire ranged from Monteverdi, Bach and Handel, the Elizabethan lute songs, German, French and English songs, through to Schoenberg, Weill and Britten, and on to conte ...
,
Benjamin Luxon
Benjamin Matthew Luxon (born 24 March 1937, Redruth, Cornwall) is a retired British baritone.
Biography
He studied with Walther Gruner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (while working part-time as a PE teacher in the East End) and est ...
, and
Michael Rippon
Michael James Rippon (born 14 September 1991) is a South African-born cricketer. He current plays international cricket for New Zealand, having previously also played for the Netherlands national cricket team. He is a right-handed batsman who bo ...
on
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...
(DGG 423 255-2)
*
Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra
The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (Hebrew: התזמורת הסימפונית ירושלים, ''ha-Tizmoret ha-Simfonit Yerushalayim'') is a major orchestra of Israel. Since the 1980s, the JSO has been based in the Henry Crown Symphony Hall, part of ...
, conducted by
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor.
Career
Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with J ...
(Turnabout TV 34675, CD reissue: Vox CDX 5043)
*
RIAS Berlin Sinfonietta, conducted by
John Mauceri
John Francis Mauceri (born September 12, 1945) is an American conductor, producer, educator and writer. Since making his professional conducting debut almost half a century ago, he has appeared with most of the world's great orchestras, guest-con ...
, with
Ute Lemper
Ute Gertrud Lemper (; born 4 July 1963) is a German singer and actress. Her roles in musicals include playing Sally Bowles in the original Paris production of ''Cabaret'', for which she won the 1987 Molière Award for Best Newcomer, and Velm ...
,
Susanne Tremper,
Helmut Wildhaber,
Peter Haage,
Thomas Mohr, and
Manfred Jungwirth
Manfred Jungwirth (4 June 1919 – 23 October 1999) was an Austrian opera singer in the bass vocal range.
Career
Born in St. Pölten, Jungwirth first worked as a choirboy in the Sankt Pölten Cathedral. In his hometown he was taught by Alice ...
on
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...
(London CD 430 168-2), doubled with ''The Seven Deadly Sins''
*
König Ensemble, conducted by
Jan Latham-Koenig
Jan Betrand Latham-Koenig, (born 1953) is a British conductor. He was born in England, coming from French, Danish and Polish origins. He attended Highgate School and then studied at the Royal College of Music in London before he founded the Ko ...
, with
Gabriele Ramm,
Trudeliese Schmidt,
Hans Franzen,
Walter Raffeiner,
Peter Nikolaus Kante, and
Horst Hiestermann on
Capriccio (Capriccio CD 60 028), doubled with ''The Seven Deadly Sins''
References
; Notes
; Cited sources
* Sacks, Glendyr. 1994. "A Brecht Calendar". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, pp. xvii–xxvii).
* Thomson, Peter and Glendyr Sacks, eds. 1994. ''The Cambridge Companion to Brecht''. (Cambridge Companions to Literature Series). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
*
Willett, John. 1967. ''The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects''. Third revised edition. London: Methuen, 1977. .
*
Willett, John and
Ralph Manheim
Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th cen ...
, eds. 1994. Introduction and Editorial Notes in ''Collected Plays: Two'' by Bertolt Brecht. (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose Series). London: Methuen. .
{{Authority control
1927 operas
German-language operas
Operas by Kurt Weill
Operas
Plays by Bertolt Brecht