Overview
The Threepenny Opera proclaims itself "an opera for beggars," and it was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of two young German artists, composer Kurt Weill and poet-playwright Bert Brecht. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny's source, The Beggar's Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel's operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue following the overture, a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, "Mack the Knife." The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria's coronation. In this production, Weill champion HK Gruber led the Ensemble Modern in a performance of Weill's complete original score, the first time it had been heard in Germany in many years. This production was broadcast on German television (3sat).
DirectorHans Hollmann
Top Casts
Friedrich Karl Praetorius
Macheath, genannt Mackie Messer
Jürgen Holtz
Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum
Ingeborg Engelmann
Celia Peachum, seine Frau
Katherina Lange
Polly Peachum, seine Tochter
Axel Böhmert
Brown, Polizeichef von London
Dorothee Hartinger
Lucy, seine Tochter
Carola Regnier
Die Spelunken-Jenny
Wilfried Elste
Pastor Kimball
Stephan Grossmann
Filch / Trauerweiden-Walter
Michael Lucke
Ein Moritatensänger / Münz-Matthias
Details
LanguageGerman
Production companies3sat
