In London, a remarkable new “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny”

The German Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht collaborated with Kurt Weill on four major stage productions between 1927 and 1933: The Threepenny Opera of 1928 widely considered their most famous and most popular collaboration while their musical play, Happy End, followed a year later with their full-length opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny coming along in 1930 with The Seven Deadly Sins, their last collaboration, presented in the form of a ‘sung ballet’, found space on a Parisian stage, namely the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, on 7th June 1933. 

Through their creative partnership, they introduced popular music with jazz-enthused influences into theatre productions thereby creating some of the most legendary musical theatre of the era of the Weimar Republic but their personal life, though, was ridden with conflict, professional jealousy and diverging political views.  

Quite often creative partnerships don’t click on a personal level. For instance, Arthur Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert had a tense, difficult and impersonal working relationship despite their professional success. While they produced 14 highly successful operas their personalities clashed significantly. 

Working in Germany within an anti-establishment, left-wing framework, the partnership between Brecht and Weill broke down around 1930 because Weill felt Brecht was pushing their work too far towards hardline communism.  

In one angry and aggressive exchange, Weill – who commented that he was unable to ‘set the Communist Manifesto to music’ – reportedly described Brecht as ‘one of the most repulsive, unpleasant fellows running round on this earth’ and in another intense argument, Brecht threatened to throw Weill down a flight of stairs calling him a ‘phoney Richard Strauss’. 

Their relationship rapidly continued going downhill when the duo fought hard over the intellectual property rights of the 1931 film adaptation of The Threepenny Opera produced by Nero-Film AG and directed by GW Pabst. Weill, however, won the day but despite his victory he always respected Brecht and his work.  

A critique of both American capitalism and the excesses of the Weimar Republic, Brecht’s acid and satirical lyrics to Mahagonny are well matched by Weill’s invigorating electric score fusing classical music with popular musical styles of the 1920s such as jazz, cabaret and ragtime thus making Mahagonny so richly pleasurable and entertaining.  

As an aside, ENO last performed it in the 1990s in a production directed by Declan Donnellan starring Lesley Garrett (Jenny Smith) and Sally Burgess (Leokadja Begbick) conducted by Sian Edwards. By and large, though, it remains rarely performed nowadays.  

Although Brecht wrote and campaigned for the poor and underprivileged, he enjoyed a comfortable and relaxed lifestyle living in exile in Los Angeles cruising the boulevards of this sprawling southern Californian metropolis in his stylish Austrian-made Steyr limo. Therefore, despite his communist, anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeois rhetoric in his plays, his hedonistic pleasures was a contradiction in terms to his strongly held political viewpoint. 

In fact, Brecht wrote a poem ‘Driving in a Comfortable Car’ in which he describes the luxury of having a car while witnessing the poverty of others. ‘Driving along in a comfortable car / On a rainy country road / We saw a raggedy man at nightfall . . . We had room but we drove past.’ Food for thought, eh! 

Premièred in Leipzig on 9th March 1930 at the Neues Theater during the volatile final years of the Weimar Republic thereby making the critique of consumerism and social decay highly inflammatory. The performance was marred by riotous behaviour with Mahagonny being interrupted and vehemently attacked by far-right Nazi sympathizers due to its overt anti-capitalist themes and the collaborators’ reputation for cultural Bolshevism. The Nazis banned the work when they took power in 1933. 

At curtain call, a mixture of thunderous applause and vehement boos raged round the theatre. Not too dissimilar in Germany today particularly with productions of Wagner operas especially the Ring cycle. Conservative, religious and political groups were angered, too, by the opera’s focus on hedonism, prostitution and a city where the only rule is having no money. That rings a bell! 

Not surprisingly the scandal in Leipzig marked the beginning of severe opposition to the opera leading to protests and riots at subsequent performances in other German cities and towns but the show found huge success when presented in Berlin in the same year of its Leipzig première. 

Thankfully, Mahagonny went on to become a 20th-century classic enjoying international stagings including a celebrated UK première at Sadler’s Wells Opera in 1963 – later becoming English National Opera who took up residency at the Coli in 1968. Within the show’s scenario, Brecht wanted to show sleaze, greed and the pursuit of wealth and consumerism for what it’s worth. He achieved this, I feel, fair and square.  

Making his ENO main stage début directing Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen in 2022, Jamie Manton delivered a most fulfilling and rewarding production of Mahagonny endorsing Brecht’s pioneering style of Epic Theatre.  

Therefore, the Chorus of English National Opera, featuring 12 extra members, were often seen directly addressing members of the audience from the very front of the stage thereby breaking the Fourth Wall to gain their undivided attention while all the backstage paraphernalia, stage machinery and so forth was seen in full view behind them – a distinctive stage effect used by Brecht to make the familiar feel strange. 

Leading a distinguished cast, Danielle de Niese (who last appeared for ENO in Jake Heggie’s stylish production of It’s a Wonderful Life in 2022 cast as the guardian angel, Clara) took the pivotal role of sex worker Jenny Smith (she needed a guardian angel!) while mezzo-soprano, Rosie Aldridge (who has appeared in several previous ENO productions including The Magic Flute and Hänsel and Gretel) was so well cast in the other leading female role of Leokadja Begbick.  

A fugitive from justice, Widow Begbick founded the hedonistic city of Mahagonny along with Trinity Moses and Fatty the Bookkeeper. Shrewd, manipulative and an opportunist through and through she used men in making a good profit providing them, of course, with unlimited pleasure.  

A soprano harbouring a lovely bright, flexible, silvery-toned voice, agile and emotionally expressive, de Niese delivered a tremendous reading of Jenny and, to boot, being a trained dancer, her presentation and movement on stage was so rewarding and visually attractive. 

Her professional career, though, seems to know no limits. She’s done practically everything and enjoys a multi-faceted career encompassing opera and concert performances along with work in musical theatre, television and as a recording artist. Cor blimey, Mary Poppins! 

In fact, I’ve attended performances by de Niese here, there and everywhere ranging from her stunning portrayal of Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, directed by David McVicar, at Glyndebourne in 2005 to her sparkling and momentous ‘Singalong’ at the 2015 Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall celebrating the 50th anniversary of the film The Sound of Music – ‘Do-Re-Mi’ and all that: lovely stuff! – while being brought down to earth enjoying a serene and inviting song recital at Snape Maltings Concert Hall in Suffolk in 2017 in which she was accompanied by Julius Drake. And that’s just for starters! 

The big number in Mahagonny, the ‘Alabama Song’, is indelibly linked to Kurt Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya. She starred as Jenny in the 1931 Berlin production at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm but didn’t receive the critical and audience response that she would have liked but that changed immediately following her 1956 studio recording. 

Admirably sung in the intimate style of music-theatre oozing tenderness and passion, de Niese well and truly highlighted the tragic and isolated character of Jenny as a disillusioned transactional figure in a city built on greed, sleaze and corruption. And together with her six good, carefree and ‘ever-so-friendly’ girls – Joanna Appleby, Deborah Davison, Sophie Goldrick, Ella Kirkpatrick, Claire Mitcher, Susanna Tudor-Thomas – they provided a welcome attraction. 

So did Jenny’s Boys – Damon Gould (A Cloud) and Adam Taylor (A Typhoon) – who paraded, danced and camped round the stage to their hearts’ content to the delight and amusement of an admiring audience warning of an impending storm to hit Mahagonny which comes at the end of the First Act but fizzles out at the beginning of the Second Act. 

And with the inhabitants of Mahagonny, relieved of the impending storm, they get straight down to business resuming their rebellious and freewheeling lifestyle of eating, sex, boxing and drinking – and not giving a damn. Another amusing directorial touch came with a herald popping up at the beginning of each scene offering a brief introduction dressed as a ‘human megaphone’ reflecting, I felt, the good old days of music hall. 

The art of music hall and burlesque would, I feel, have touched the heart of Lenya in her heyday. If she bridged the gap between opera and cabaret-style singing frequently utilising the technique of ‘sprechstimme’, a form of speech and song, de Niese bridges the gap between opera and other musical genres in similar fashion. 

A witty person, Lenya defined her voice as harbouring a sound that was ‘an octave below laryngitis’ while de Niese, a humorous and highly charismatic performer, harbours an exceptionally clear and articulate voice that perfectly fitted the role of Jenny and perfectly fitted Manton’s exhilarating production. 

A hit number, for sure, the ‘Alabama Song’ has transcended its origins and has been recorded by so many great artists ranging from David Bowie to The Doors, a testament, therefore, to the opera’s remarkable accessibility and its ability to resonate with audiences over generations. In one scene, de Niese, ‘miked up’, reprises the ‘Alabama Song’ in a true passionate cabaret-style way.  

American bass, Kenneth Kellogg (no, he’s not!) – who made his ENO début in 2023 in Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s opera Blue singing The Father, a role specifically created for him – played the role of Trinity Moses to the full while the loutish Lumberjacks who arrive in the city of Mahagonny from slogging and logging day in and day out in the hellhole of Alaska in pursuit of hedonism and all that prevails included Fatty the Bookkeeper, admirably sung by the distinguished tenor and ENO regular, Mark Le Brocq, who has performed in several previous ENO productions most notably The Magic Flute, Salome, The Barber of Seville and Don Giovanni. 

A newcomer to ENO, New Zealand-born heldentenor, Simon O’Neill, delivered a thoughtful and accurate account of Jimmy MacIntyre, the cash-strapped lumberjack who becomes a victim of the system but had to endure the backlash of ‘falling’ for Jenny. And in the final trial scene, Widow Begbick acts as the judge sentencing him to death for the ultimate crime of having no money. She also brought a hardline stance to her solo at the end of Act Two when she refuses to help poor old Jimmy in his time of need. 

The duet by Jimmy and Jenny in Act Two (often referred to as the ‘Crane Duet’) offered a big dramatic moment in the whole of the opera and delivered with respect and passion by O’Neill and de Niese contrasting the business side of their characters’ relationship to the more personal and human side. The vocal chemistry between the singers was paramount in exploring the feelings of affection and tenderness that really existed between them thereby serving as a brief respite from the cynical, hedonistic and mercenary world that they were embroiled in. 

And an uncontrollable scene unfolded when Jack O’Brian, played by tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas, eats himself to death while disaster befalls Alaska Wolf Joe, knocked for six and out for the count and on his way to the mortuary after a rigged boxing match with Trinity Moses with British bass, David Shipley, a graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists’ Programme at the Royal Opera House, on top form.  

Surviving the toughness of life in Mahagonny, Alex Otterburn took on Bank-Account Billy while South African-born tenor, Zwakele Tshabalala sung Toby Higgins, a murderer who escaped justice by bribing the court. Both singers made a nice impression of their respective roles. Money counts for everything in Mahagonny. 

The ‘shining stars’ of the whole shooting-match, though, fell to the well-trained Chorus of English National Opera under the direction of Matthew Quinn. They had a ‘big say’ in this production with Lizzi Gee’s movement and placement of this fine and determined chorus, regimentally seen dominating the vast stage of the Coli, painted a welcoming and bright panoramic picture. 

The most dominant prop on stage, a mobile box trailer, was utilised for such intimate scenes as the ‘pleasure’ house and the Jack O’Brian scene while D.M. Wood’s lighting lifted the darkness of the production so well with Jake Moore’s sound design conjuring up a restless environment.  

By and large, Milla Clarke’s extensive wardrobe looked cheap and cheerful but colourful nonetheless adding an extra bit of sparkle to a rather dark and foreboding production that clicked with the audience and anyone, I guess, who has ever attended a Glastonbury Festival. 

One of the highlights of the opera, however, was the sombre and satirical number ‘Benares Song’ heard in Act Three which brought to the fore the futility of one trying to seek Utopia therefore duly serving as a desperate ironic anthem for the characters seeking a mythical better place to reside because their hedonistic city of Mahagonny had failed them.  

Totally chorus driven but delivered in a cabaret-style presentation, the piece accompanies Jimmy awaiting his execution by the hangman. A significant and well-read performance, the scene highlighted the vulnerability of the people and, indeed, of Mahagonny itself. ‘There’s no whiskey in this town / There’s no fast buck to be made / There’s no way to take a bath / And no one is getting paid.’  

The text symbolizes the final, empty and desperate state of their hedonistic pursuit of pleasure is truly bankrupt and the employment of an airport-type travelator, seen earlier in the opera assisting in transporting the hopeful and wanting towards Mahagonny, had run out of steam.  

But the man in the pit, German-born conductor, André de Ridder, making his ENO début, had plenty of steam left in him and took charge of a remarkable and telling production directing the Orchestra of English National Opera, admirably led by David Adams, in a well-disciplined, constructive and compelling performance of a work ranging from the punchy jazz-inspired overture to a host of lovely

Currently, Generalmusikdirektor, Theater Freiburg, de Ridder was born into a musical family and studied conducting with Leopo symphonic-structured passages that were simply delightful to hear in the confines of the London Coliseum. ld Hager at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna and with Sir Colin Metters at the Royal Academy of Music, London.  

A champion of contemporary music and opera, he has conducted a host of significant world premières including Damon Albarn and Chen Shi-Zheng’s Monkey: Journey to the West (Manchester International Festival, 2007), Gerald Barry’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (ENO), Wolfgang Rihm’s Drei Frauen (Theater Basel), Donnacha Dennehy’s The Last Hotel (Edinburgh Festival, 2015), Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains (Opera Forward Festival with Dutch National Opera, 2016) and Daniel Bjarnason’s Brothers (Den Jyske Opera, 2017).  

Therefore, I feel, de Ridder harbours the right credentials for ENO and from the 2027-28 season he takes up the post of ENO’s Music Director. So welcome to St Martin’s Lane and the London Coliseum, the house that Stoll built, a well-appointed theatre designed by the doyen of theatre architects, Frank Matcham, built as the ‘people’s palace of entertainment’ and one of the first theatres in London to feature electric lighting.  

Affectionately known as the Coli, the doors to this lovely and inviting theatre opened to the public on Christmas Eve 1904 with a variety bill featuring the ‘Grand Musical Spectacular’ Port Arthur produced by Oswald Stoll with this inaugural show specifically designed to highlight the Coli’s immense and technologically advanced stage boasting its innovative large-scale revolving stage. The English singer and actress, Lilian Decima, Lady Moore-Guggisberg, CBE, was also on the bill.  

Who’s she, I thought. I soon found out. Better known by her stage name, Miss Decima Moore, she was known for her performances in soprano roles with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. The youngest of ten siblings (hence the name ‘Decima’) her sister, actress Eva Moore, was the mother of actress Jill Esmond, the first wife of Laurence Olivier.  

Incidentally, Moore made her stage début starring as Casilda in the première of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers on 7th December 1889 at the age of 17 at London’s Savoy Theatre which opened in 1881 in a blaze of glory and publicity and the first public building in the world to be fully lit by electricity. 

After going through a difficult period by no fault of its own, may I suggest, things are looking up for English National Opera, a futuristic and pioneering company creating opera for the people without limits and, to boot, sung in English. That’s something which I think Herr Brecht would have fully endorsed.  

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