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The Threepenny Opera Returns to Broadway

Mar. 01, 2006

The Threepenny Opera, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's masterpiece of the lyric stage, bows again on Broadway at New York's Studio 54 this month in a new production directed by Scott Elliott for the Roundabout Theatre. Preview performances begin March 24 and opening night is set for April 20.

Performed in a new translation by Wallace Shawn, this Threepenny is sure to be a sensation, featuring a knock-out cast including Alan Cumming as Macheath, Jim Dale as Mr. Peachum, Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Peachum, Cyndi Lauper as Jenny and Nellie McKay as Polly. Musical direction is by Kevin Stites with choreography by Aszure Barton, set design by Derek McLane and costumes by Isaac Mizrahi. Headlining  dashing thieves, saucy prostitutes and a highly organized network of higly organized mendicants, Weill and Brecht's enduring masterwork is based on Elizabeth Hauptmann’s German translation of John Gay’s eighteenth-century The Beggar’s Opera. In what would serve as inspiration for a whole new brand of music theater, The Threepenny Opera brings the seedy underworld of Mack the Knife to vibrant life with a score full of inventive melody, jazzy syncopation, and edgy dissonance.

Performances run March 24 through June 18, 2006.

Tickets can be purchased at Roundabout Theater online at www.3pennyonbroadway.com. More information on Kurt Weill can be found at the Kurt Weill Foundation at www.kwf.org and Universal Edition at www.universaledition.com

There's more Weill on offer across the pond as Arms and the Cow (Der Kuhhandel) opens at England's Opera North on March 30. A satirical operetta that tells the tale of a rogue arms dealer and two young lovers and their cow (all on a sleepy Caribbean island called Santa Maria), this production of Der Kuhhandel is directed by David Pountney and conducted by James Holmes.

For more on Der Kuhhandel at Opera North, please visit www.operanorth.co.uk. More about the opera can also be found at Schott Music International at www.schott-music.com.

Looking ahead, Los Angeles Opera presents Audra McDonald in a new production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in February 2007. Conducted by Music Director James Conlon, the opera will feature Tony Award winner Patti LuPone and John Doyle, star and director of this season's Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd. They are joined by tenor Anthony Dean Griffey. It's certain to be a highlight of the season at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Los Angeles Opera is online at www.laopera.com.

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