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Mahagonny Makes a Triumphal Return to Leipzig

Oct. 28, 2026

From a riot to a riotous ovation. Ninety-six years ago, the world premiere of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny in Leipzig was met by carefully orchestrated disruptions on the part of National Socialists, which provoked clashes among audience members that hastened the evening’s descent into chaos. Last week, the uproar in the Gewandhaus auditorium expressed collective rapture at two concert performances of the opera led by HK Gruber. Exulted Peter Korfmacher in the Leipziger Volkszeitung: “The Gewandhausorchester had demonstrated with every single bar that Mahagonny is not a garish spectacle, not a revue critical of capitalism, nor even a cynical ballad. Rather, it is truly grand opera, symphonic in its entirety.”

These two Leipzig performances were a culmination of Gruber’s decades of dedication to Weill’s music. The conductor had long harbored ambitions to lead a definitive performance and recording of Aufstieg, to set a new standard in musical realizations of the work. Partnership with the Gewandhaus Orchester and timely confluence with the celebration in 2026 of a “Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony” provided the opportunity to assemble the first-class artists needed to bring this wish to fruition. Headlining the cast were two leading lights of Weill performance in the world today: soprano Lauren Michelle and mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta. Michelle, the First Prize winner of the 2015 Lenya Competition, drew praise from Allmuth Behrendt in pizzicato.lu for her “outstanding” Jenny, portrayed with “a wonderfully light and remarkably versatile soprano voice” and “captivating with a seemingly inexhaustible range of expressive nuances.” Korfmacher described Giunta’s Widow Begbick as “just venomous and calculating enough that the ironically subverted grand opera pose and the person behind Brecht’s stereotype balance each other out.” 

The lead male role was to have been sung by Mirko Roschkowski, who distinguished himself as Jim Mahoney in a 2025 production in Augsburg. Unfortunately, last-minute illness precluded his appearance. Rolf Romei, who played the role recently in Basel, stepped in with authority on less than twenty-four-hour notice and without the benefit of rehearsal with cast or orchestra. As reported in the Leipziger Volkszeitung: “He and his colleagues—Michael Laurenz as Fatty, Florian Boesch as Trinity Moses, Philipp Kapeller as Jakob Schmidt, along with Markus Butter, Tilmann Rönnebeck, Gideon Poppe, and Andreas Fischer—as well as the women of the MDR Choir on stage and the men in the gallery—leave hardly a single nuance untapped, moving seamlessly between spoken dialogue and the most exquisite singing.”

An authoritative recording of Aufstieg is long overdue. The first, starring Lotte Lenya and conducted by Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg, was recorded in 1956 in Hamburg, Germany, and was initially released in the USA in 1958 by Columbia. Although that recording will always hold its own unique status, the subsequent recording history of the work has not been a rich one, the most recent one dating from 1988. The most compelling recorded performances are actually two preserved on video. The classic Metropolitan Opera production starring Teresa Stratas that premiered in 1979 is still available in streaming format on Met Opera on Demand. A 2010 production by the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus at the Teatro Real de Madrid, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado, can be found in DVD and Blu-Ray formats.

That the new recording by Gruber and the Gewandhaus Orchester is poised to be a landmark in the history of the work is clear from the critics’ approbation. “With the utmost precision, HK Gruber coaxed every nuance of Weill's palette from the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the instrumental soloists, from the sensuously lyrical cantilena to the relentlessly crystal-clear, piercing spectacle,” enthused Behrendt. Korfmacher assessed Gruber’s musical mastery of the score in this way: “Gruber keeps the three acts flowing seamlessly across the boundaries between scenes. He navigates the complex meter with nonchalant mastery and infuses the Gewandhaus Orchestra with so much musical energy that the musicians deliver an extraordinary performance.”

Stay tuned for more news in advance of the recording’s release!

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