I don’t intend to comment in any detail on the work’s musicological significance, as this is beyond my area of competence: may I simply recommend Stephen Hinton’s excellent Cambridge Opera Handbook. In this discussion I shall concentrate on the three aspects just outlined (a) the problematic status of the text (b) the theatrical significance of The Threepenny Opera (c) the politics of The Threepenny Opera. It is also a transitional work in the more fundamental sense that it was itself a work in transition, which Brecht rewrote in 1931, and it is this later version of the text that forms the basis for the ‘standard’ edition reprinted in the standard Methuen edition. Accordingly, The Threepenny Opera has tended to be seen as a transitional work, not only in terms of Brecht’s politics, but also as regards his developing theory and practice of epic theatre. It occupies a central position in this phase in Brecht’s career, a phase of particular importance in Brecht’s shift to Marxism. The Threepenny Opera, the first major product of his work with Weill, was written and premiered in 1928.

He was also involved in collaborative ventures with several avant-garde composers, among them Hindemith, Eisler, and of course Weill. He wrote several major plays and numerous theoretical essays, and made significant progress in developing the practice of epic theatre. Juri Sternburg, born 1983, author, journalist, dramatist.The years from 1926 to 1932 constitute one of the most productive and problematic phases in Brecht’s career. Jörg Brüggemann, born 1979, is a photographer-he has been with the OSTKREUZ agency since 2009. Adam Benzwi, born 1965, pianist, conductor, teacher. His work has taken him to the Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Festival, Oper Frankfurt, the Zurich Opera House, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Bayreuth Festival. In 2014 he was voted Director of the Year at the International Opera Awards. Writers Marion Brasch and Juri Sternburg and photographer Jörg Brüggemann, who were on hand as the production took shape, give readers an inside view of the work: onstage, front of house, and behind the scenes.īarrie Kosky, born 1967 in Melbourne, has been artistic director of Berlin’s Komische Oper since the 2012/13 season. The internationally sought-after opera director is not interested in putting on a nostalgia-fest revelling in the Golden Twenties but instead wants to give the story a contemporary twist. A new Threepenny Opera for Berlin: In spring 2021 a new production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s globally acclaimed musical drama, directed by Barrie Kosky, and conducted by Adam Benzwi, premiered at the Berliner Ensemble, where the piece was first performed in 1928.

The threepenny opera by bertolt brecht