Symposium: Cheek, ignorance and vice!

Date & Time

Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 10:00

Venue

On 21st December 1931 the Theater am Kurfürstendamm hosted the Berlin premiere of Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. These were febrile times, both politically and artistically. Tensions between radical groups on the fringes of the Weimar Republic boiled over frequently. The legendary Kroll Opera under the direction of Otto Klemperer, always a thorn in the flesh of right-wing political parties because of its openness to modernist works, was forced to close in... Read full text

Keywords: Lecture, Opera

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Last update: Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 18:19

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In Berlin

Symposium: Cheek, ignorance and vice!

Sun, Jun 22, 2025, 11:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin, Foyer (Berlin)

On 21st December 1931 the Theater am Kurfürstendamm hosted the Berlin premiere of Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. These were febrile times, both politically and artistically. Tensions between radical groups on the fringes of the Weimar Republic boiled over frequently. The legendary Kroll Opera under the direction of Otto Klemperer, always a thorn in the flesh of right-wing political parties because of its openness to modernist works, was forced to close in July 1931. This despite Klemperer of all people declining to mount the world premiere of the piece in 1929 due to MAHAGONNY’s “crassness”. It was Ernst Josef Aufricht, one of the driving forces behind THE THREEPENNY OPERA, who brought the work to Berlin on his own initiative, hiring former Kroll conductor Alexander Zemlinsky as musical director and Caspar Neher to direct the onstage action and take charge of set design. Actors were cast in place of almost all the singers, which forced Weill into a number of re-writes and caused friction with Brecht at rehearsals. Such complications did not prevent the production from notching up almost fifty performances – one of the last great theatre runs of the Weimar Republic prior to the turning point of 1933. Today there is again talk of a turning point in the political landscape, so the opera is once again being tested for present-day relevance. In resonating with current political goings-on, does RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY have the same capacity to scandalise as it did in 1931? Or has Brecht’s “brazen, Berlin-style jostling of capitalism” (in the words of Hugo Leichtentritt, writing in Die Music magazine) now lost its sting? These are the kinds of questions that the symposium at the Deutsche Oper Berlin aims to address. The event sprang from a collaboration with the “Opera in Berlin 1925-1944” project, which is being hosted by the Humboldt University in Berlin and is part-funded by the German Research Foundation (Director: ...

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About the work Betrayal, lost honour, crime and atonement, passionate love, a yearning for death and forgetting… The tale of Tristan and Isolde grew from a Celtic legend into today’s work of mythical stature. It inspired Richard Wagner to his “opus metaphysicum” [Friedrich Nietzsche]. TRISTAN AND ISOLDE, with its decidedly romantic score, is considered a harbinger of modernism. The chord that introduces the opera – the famous “Tristan Chord”, one of the most hotly discussed items in the history of music – threw musicologists into disarray, challenging accepted ideas of tonality and harmony. Equally explosive is the love between Tristan and Isolde, who defy pressure to comply with conventions and moral codes. Tristan, the “man of sorrow” who is ever mindful that his mother died giving birth to him, is in love with Isolde and yet determined to deliver her, as agreed, to his king, thereby breaking not one but two pledges. Isolde, too, is not blameless in this forbidden love affair, having in an earlier period spared the life of Tristan – who had stayed her hand with a look - instead of killing the murderer of Morold, her would-be bridegroom. She is increasingly estranged from her familiar domesticity, and, flouting all social norms, the couple inexorably approach their longed-for end – their own erasure? About the production TRISTAN AND ISOLDE continues to fascinate and disturb to this day. It has occupied philosophers, psychologists, writers, composers and musicologists. Briton Graham Vick, one of the most innovative stagers of opera in recent years, who worked and appeared at opera houses and festivals around the world and steered the fortunes of the Glyndebourne festival over many years, brought a solemnity to his rendering of the lovers’ story, rejecting over-dramatization. He placed his protagonists in a drawing room that, to the casual observer, appears unremarkable but whose slightly worn elegance is speckled with details alluding to the archaic foundations ...

Info (deutscheoperberlin.de)

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Info (deutscheoperberlin.de)

Finished

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Sat, Jan 18, 2025, 16:00

Deutsche Oper Berlin (Berlin)

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