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Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Debuts at Covent Garden; Live Cinema Screenings Worldwide

Mar. 03, 2015

<em>Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny</em> Debuts at Covent Garden; Live Cinema Screenings Worldwide

Eighty-five years after the premiere of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny in Leipzig, Weill and Brecht’s masterpiece enjoys its Royal Opera House debut at Covent Garden. The new production, which runs March 10 – April 4, is directed by ROH Associate Director John Fulljames, whose Opera Group/Young Vic production of Street Scene won the 2008 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. Mark Wigglesworth conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and a cast that features Anne Sofie von Otter as Leokadja Begbick, Willard White as Trinity Moses, Christine Rice as Jenny Smith, and Kurt Streit as Jimmy MacIntyre. The work will be performed in a new English translation by Jeremy Sams, who has translated lyrics for The Threepenny Opera and the Weill/Robert Vambery operetta Der Kuhhandel.

In Mahagonny, Weill and Brecht created a mythical sin city where money rules and the pursuit of pleasure is paramount. Weill's score crosses over from opera to cabaret and Broadway, incorporating elements of jazz and music hall, and Brecht’s libretto is a stinging critique of capitalism, greed, and consumerism. This timely—and timeless—work has been presented in recent years by several major opera houses, including Los Angeles Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Berlin Staatsoper, and Vienna Staatsoper.

Of the opera, Fulljames remarks:

This is an opera which cannot fail to connect to its audience. It’s remarkable that the shocks of Weill’s opera have lost none of their freshness and that the opera still speaks so potently today. Politically, its exploration of a society built on consumption has surely ended up ringing far more true today than even Brecht and Weill could have imagined.

Opera lovers and Weill-Brecht fans around the globe who can’t make it to Covent Garden will be able to experience the Royal Opera House production of Mahagonny through live cinema screenings and radio broadcasts:

CINEMA: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny will be filmed on April 1 and screened in over a thousand theaters across six continents, from Reykjavik to Buenos Aires, as part of the 2014-15 Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season.

RADIO: Mahagonny will be broadcast live from Covent Garden on BBC Radio 3 on March 14 at 7:20pm, and may be streamed for 30 days afterwards.

For more details on the production, visit roh.org.uk.

Visit kwf.org for more information on Kurt Weill.

Kurt Weill
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1927/29)
opera in three acts
text (Ger) by Bertolt Brecht
English translation by Jeremy Sams
S, Mz, 3T, 2Bar, B; chorus and orchestra
2(2pic)1.1.ssax.asax.tsax.2(cbsn)-2.3.2.1-perc.timp-pno.harm ad lib.banjo.bass gtr.bandoneon-str
Stage orchestra: 2(2pic).2.3sax(ssax, asax, tsax).2-2.2.2.1-perc-pno.zither or xyl.banjo.bandoneon-3 vn
full evening

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