Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny

“Seven days without work!” – That is the promise of the city of Mahagonny, founded by three fugitives in the middle of nowhere. Jim Mahoney arrives in the desert metropolis with his hard-earned dollars and his friends to indulge in unbridled revelry. As a hurricane bears down on Mahagonny, Jim ups the ante and proclaims the law of bliss: “You may!” Spared by the storm, everything is now permitted in Mahagonny—except for one thing, which carries the death penalty: insolvency. Amid blatant excess and corruption, Jim orders three whiskeys, bets his last money, and loses. Now he can’t pay for the whiskey…

Radical and full of grand operatic gestures, Bertolt Brecht’s text and Kurt Weill’s multifaceted music—a blend of pub songs, high-pitched operatic tones, shimmy and foxtrot adaptations, and chorales—invite us to dance into the abyss—and to a dark Passion play in which, instead of bells, the cash registers ring.