Die Dreigroschenoper
The Threepenny Opera
Premiered August 31, 1928, in Berlin
at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.
Erich Engel, director.
Theo Mackeben, conductor.
The Revolutionary Brecht
And the Enfant Terrible Weill
Sliced the Norms of Berlin Theatre.
A child of the Fifties in the USA most likely has hummed the tune to Bobby Darin's rendition of "Mack the Knife" — and may even be able to sing the first lines in English:
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
And he keeps it, ah, out of sight
Ya know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
So there's never, never a trace of red.
The general reader may not realize that Mr. Darin's pop hit was written and composed for the German stage during the late 1920s under the title Die Moritat von Mackie Messer. It was the prologue to Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), a creation by two of Weimar's most productive and innovative artists: the writer Bertolt Brecht and the composer Kurt Weill.
The names Brecht and Weill when uttered in the same sentence were potent symbols of change and innovation among Berlin's artistic milieu during the Weimar Era. Their reputation aroused opposing forces of skepticism and admiration before the fact when Die Dreigroschenoper burst upon the scene in August, 1928. Long before the first curtain rose, the opera was condemned as a failure by many critics!
Mr. Weill's reputation had already been established as an "enfant terrible" of the atonal musical revolution, and Mr. Brecht's previous endeavors were either embraced wholeheartedly or rejected vehemently. According to Lotte Lenya, Mr. Weill's wife and a popular actress who portrayed Jenny in the play, the audience on opening night remained unmoved until the Kanonensong (Canon Song), when they "let out a roar." In an instant, Berlin theatergoers had embraced the new opera — and enthusiasm for it grew with each performance. At the height of the opera's popularity, its songs were featured nightly at a trendy pub named Die Dreigroshcen.
The Brecht-Weill collaboration began in 1927 with a smaller experimental production, the successful Das kleine Mahagonny, a hybrid of a classical Singspiel and popular dance rhythms.
T H E M E S A N D C H A R A C T E R S
R E F L E C T T H E U N S T A B L E N A T U R E
O F A F L E D G L I N G R E P U B L I C .
The triumphs of writer Brecht and composer Weill as collaborators in the artistic realm were intertwined with the social and political upheaval in Weimar Germany. In many ways the themes, characters, and story lines of their creations reflected the unstable nature of the age. The fledgling Republic was a heady brew of activism stirred by the struggle for power among communists, fascists, and socialists. As the proletariat ascended, the aristocratic and military contemporaries of Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm faded into the shadowy realm of intrigue and power-mongering. Germany was no more the proud monarchy, but a cauldron of revolt, first stirred by the rebellious German Navy at Kiel at the end of World War One. The naval rebels forced the Kaiser's abdication, which gave rise to a precipitous new government.
Besmirching the promise of the new republic was the disgrace of Germany's defeat in the World War and the harsh reparations imposed on her by the victors. The Versailles Treaty stripped the new nation of territory, money, and honor. Faced with insurmountable war reparations, legions of unemployed soldiers, and an economy shorn of an industrial base, Germany sought nonetheless to embrace the Golden Twenties, but saw all too quickly that the age was tarnished by obstacles too great to overcome.
One government after another fell in the atmosphere of relentless struggle and scarcity. The common man struggled to find food, but the artists — the Outsiders — seized the moment of transition and flourished.
B L U R R I N G T H E L I N E
B E T W E E N A U D I E N C E , A C T O R .
Mr. Weill broke with the classical and romantic tradition of the three Bs (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms) by including elements of popular music (such as the tango) in his compositions. Mr. Brecht joined the Communist Party and wrote a manifesto about his ideals for an "epic" theater, where the line between audience and performer would be erased. His conviction that art should serve the common good inspired him to move beyond the traditional boundaries of the theatrical experience. Many conventions popular in contemporary theatre owe their conception to Mr. Brecht's experimentation with radical techniques (the title board is one example).
The idea for Die Dreigroschenoper was inspired by Mr. Brecht's secretary, Elisabeth Hauptmann, who read about the successful revival of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera in London in 1927 and ordered a copy to translate and present to Mr. Brecht. Intrigued, the writer contacted Kurt Weill to see if he would write the "incidental music" for his new work.
Along with Paul Hindemith and Ernst Kreneck, Mr. Weill was considered one of the most gifted of the young opera composers of the age. His reputation as a rule breaker and uncompromising advocate of the atonal style became a plus in the artistic vision of Mr. Brecht.
The team Brecht-Weill began to work on the libretto and music at the same time that actor-turned-producer Ernst-Josef Aufricht was looking for a play to stage at the Schiffbauerdamm Theater, an older venue in the theater district just a few steps off one of the main Berlin streets, the Friedrichstrasse. Mr. Aufricht ran into the writer at the Schlichter, a Bohemian café, and asked him for a play. Mr. Brecht offered the script of The Threepenny Opera, but he didn't tell the producer that the terrible Weill would be the composer. When Mr. Aufricht later discovered this omission, he secretly hired Theo Mackeben to look-up the original Johann Christoph Pepusch score of Gay's The Beggar's Opera for use as an emergency substitute should Mr. Weill's music fall flat on its atonal face. After hearing a rehearsal of Jenny's tango ballad, Die Zuhälterballade, the dubious producer changed his mind and decided to honor the new music.
The premiere was set for August, 1928. Already the rumormongers were circulating the notion that Mr. Aufricht had commissioned a turkey. Undeterred, the Brecht-Weill duo and their families left Berlin for the French Riviera to finish the libretto and score.
I T D I D N ' T L O O K G O O D
U N T I L T H E M U S I C P L A Y E D .
Misfortune followed disaster as the cast prepared for opening night. Carola Neher in the role of Polly Peachum had to be replaced because of a family crisis. The actor portraying Mr. Peachum backed out. The cast squabbled and protested about the suggestive lyrics of several songs. The play didn't even have a name until Lion Feuchtwanger suggested the title Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), which Brecht immediately accepted and put on the marquee. The dress rehearsal lasted until five a.m. on opening day as several last-minute changes were rehearsed. The cast broke for a brief rest and returned to the theater at noon for a final run-through.
At last, the moment of first blush arrived! Eight hundred seats were filled with dubious theatergoers as the strange and delicious notes of the prologue began to fill the house. What did they hear? The memorable first song, "Mack the Knife."
Although reviews were mixed, the cognoscenti and other Outsiders embraced the opera and its compelling story of a band of thieves and beggars, whistling the tunes of Mack, Polly, Jenny, and the Peachums.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
 Gay, Peter. Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001)
Brecht, Bertolt. The Threepenny Opera. Bentley, Eric, editor. (Grove Press, 1977)
By Freddie A. Bowles
21 June 2003
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