Die Dreigroschenoper

play

by Bertolt Brecht (text) and Kurt Weill (music) with the collaboration of Elisabeth Hauptmann | in cooperation with the Nationaltheaterorchester

Glamor, glitz and a dark mood of sin à la "Babylon Berlin": Bertolt Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera" became one of the most successful plays of the 20th century - thanks in part to the enormous popularity of Kurt Weill's songs such as the "Moritat von Mackie Messer". Since its premiere in 1928, it has been regarded as a groundbreaking fusion of drama and musical theater, of criticism of capitalism and gangster romance: beggar king Jonathan Peachum runs a special kind of morality-free franchise that turns the plight of the poor into a business with the pity of the rich. But the London underworld, bathed in red light, is fiercely competitive: when his daughter Polly becomes engaged to the head gangster Macheath, known as Mackie Messer, of all people, Peachum sees his empire under threat and hands his future son-in-law over to the police - who also have their own moral standards. In-house director Christian Weise and members of the National Theatre Orchestra take us into Bertolt Brecht's shark tank of the roaring twenties.