You already know it, of course, as it has already been extensively covered in many newspapers. That opera by Kurt Weill with that difficult title is now to be seen in Antwerp and Ghent, and even then in the direction of Ivo Vanhove. There is much to tell about Weill and his "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny". But now read something other than a journalistic newspaper article. Try the booklet that musicologist Pieter Bergé wrote. It is just as accessible as what reviewers write and above all much more thorough.
Thorough is the work in any case. The author once again demonstrates his erudite strength as a good communicator. It is not really a program booklet for the new production in Antwerp and Ghent. It presents itself as "essential reading for the opera lover, the culture enthusiast and the professional musician".
First, Bergé outlines the path that Weill and Brecht followed towards their true opera, via their earlier Mahagonny-songspiel and the Dreigroschenoper and tells how anti-Wagner that path was and how jazzy and contemporary. No mythological 'heroism with forest tumult' but 'new contemporaneity' with topical themes, no sleep-inducing endless melodies but stimulating sounds from the then new and 'booming' music industry, no Gesamtkunstwerk but a number opera that had to rely on the songs.
He then goes into the social context in which the work was created, the era of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), discusses the structure of the piece using the captions that Brecht and Weill use to introduce the scenes, reviews the three acts (rise, flourish and decline) also with the stories of the characters, and how the Land of Cockaigne Mahagonny becomes a place of pleasure, "where there is nothing that one cannot buy" and perishes from "the enmity of all against all."
The essay is based on the many texts that Weill and Brecht themselves wrote about their work and is also interspersed with numerous quotes from the opera and refers to numerous authors who analyzed the opera and thus also the author and composer. The paragraphs in which Bergé seeks and finds connections and analogies in the story with parables from the Bible and New Testament are also interesting reading.
Equally interesting are the reflections on all that fascination for the United States, for progress there. Witness the use of those numerous American place names and the English in the songs. Also look at that telling illustration: in the booklet two photographs from 1930 are printed one above the other, one of the skyline from Berlin, horizontally, and that of New York, vertically. America, model or harbinger of doom? The story itself of the opera, writes the author, of course also refers to the attraction that adventurers in the Western world felt for the phenomenon of gold prospectors in Alaska. And for the slapstick element, which is so evident in Mahagonny, Brecht and Weill may well have drawn their inspiration from the film comedies of Charles Chaplin (The Goldrush) and Buster Keaton (The Navigator), according to Bergé. And then there is the music that was supposed to attract a new audience to the opera. He points to the different musical styles and techniques applied in the composition, from jazzy schlagers to choral singing. And also to the contrast between Brecht's sometimes caustic texts and Weill's mild music and illustrates that musically-analytically.
Bergé places this opera very broadly and especially thoroughly in a musical and social frame of reference. A thorough study of texts by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya and many others must have preceded this. A dramaturge can only be jealous here. With this study, the author seems ready to direct and conduct the opera himself.
WHO: Pieter Bergé
WHAT: Kurt Weill Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
PUBLICATION: Operatheek, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and Universitaire Pers Leuven (ISBN 9789462703346)