Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is a groundbreaking opera written by Bertolt Brecht and composed by Kurt Weill. It tells the story of a city based on the relentless pursuit of profit, and relying upon consumption; sex, food, drinking, and gambling, are its cornerstones. Anything can be turned into a commodity, and everything is allowed as long as one is prepared to pay for it. And in terms of Mahagonny's distorted and ruthless sense of justice, one can get away with shooting someone, but they are sentenced to death for having no money.
Mahagonny thus is an allegory of capitalism, and at the same time a satire of opera conventions. Bertolt Brecht opened up a new space for the critique of contemporary themes in the context of a traditional genre, while Kurt Weill subverted opera's musical formalism by incorporating jazz influences and elements of popular music. Furthermore, their work brought the harsh realities of capitalism, including the cruelty with which people treat each other, to the forefront; and in doing so, one might say that they brought opera down to earth.
bbc.co.uk
Not just any earth though; Mahagonny was created in the context of the Weimar Republic, and was met with hostility by the Nazis, who banned it in 1933. "In a way," argues Tim Smith in the Public Broadcasting Service website, "what Brecht and Weill did was to hold up a
mirror, allowing those with open eyes to see the world around them." The opera premiered on 9 March 1930 in Leipzig; a retrospective by the Public Broadcasting Service includes the following quote by the actor and singer Lotte Lenya, who was in the audience:
I have been told that the square around the opera house was filled with Nazi Brown Shirts, carrying placards protesting the 'Mahagonny' performance. ... The performance [was] well under way, before I was startled out of my absorption by the electric tension around us, something strange and ugly. As the opera swept toward its close, the demonstrations started, whistles and boos; by the time the last scene was reached, fist fights had broken out in the aisles, the theatre was a screaming mass of people; soon the riot had spread to the stage, panicky spectators were trying to claw their way out, and only the arrival of a large police force, finally, cleared the theatre.
Mahagonny is a timeless piece of art with a long performance history, including a new production by the Catalan group La Fura dels Baus. Their imaginative and rough-edged interpretation may actually be read as a reflection upon the current economic crisis; it was directed by Alex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa, two founding members of La Fura dels Baus, and it premiered in Teatro Real in Madrid in 2010.
The above video includes an excerpt in which the Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman sings what probably is Mahagonny's most popular piece: the Alabama Song. It has been covered by numerous artists, and most notably by David Bowie, who happens to be a Brecht aficionado; in 1982, for example, he played the lead role in a BBC television production of Baal, which you can see in its entirety here, while recordings of the songs from the play were released as the acclaimed EP of the same name.
David Bowie's version of the Alabama Song was released as a single in 1980; he had already included it in his 1978 tour, and played it again on stage in 1990. The following video is from his concert in Berlin during the 2002 Heathen tour. The city is no stranger to Bowie; he had settled down in Berlin during the late 1970s, and it is there that he recorded what may be seen as his best work, the trilogy consisting of the albums Low, "Heroes", and Lodger. And it is this period of his life that he refers to while introducing the Alabama Song; "[w]hen I was living in Berlin," he tells the audience, "I used to sing this song every morning."
Oh show me the way to the next whisky bar
Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next whisky bar
Or if we don't find the next whisky bar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have whisky or you know why
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have whisky or you know why
Oh show us the way to the next little dollar
Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next little dollar
Or if we don't find the next little dollar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have dollar or you know why
Oh show us the way to the next little girl
Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next little girl
Or if we don't find the next little girl
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have little girl or you know why
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say 'auf wiedersehen'
We've lost our good old mama
And must have little girl or you know why
You know why
You know why
Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next whisky bar
Or if we don't find the next whisky bar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have whisky or you know why
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have whisky or you know why
Oh show us the way to the next little dollar
Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next little dollar
Or if we don't find the next little dollar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have dollar or you know why
Oh show us the way to the next little girl
Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next little girl
Or if we don't find the next little girl
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have little girl or you know why
Oh moon of Alabama, it's time to say 'auf wiedersehen'
We've lost our good old mama
And must have little girl or you know why
You know why
You know why
This post is dedicated to Pericles, a dear friend and an exquisite bassist, who "knows why."
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