Real innovations attack the roots.
[From ‘Anmerkungen zur Oper “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny”’ in GW Schriften zum Theater, p. 1004, originally published over the names of Brecht and (Peter) Suhrkamp in Versuche 2, 1931. These notes, which are given complete in Brecht on Theatre under the title ‘The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre’, have here been shorn of those passages which are not primarily relevant to the present work. This has meant the omission of all section 1, the long table contrasting epic and dramatic theatre in section 3, all but the last two paragraphs of section 4 and the whole of section 5. The full essay is perhaps the most important pre-1933 statement of Brecht’s ideas about the theatre in general.]
Notes by Weill and Neher
NOTES TO MY OPERA Mahagonny
by Kurt Weill
When Brecht and I first met in spring 1927 we were discussing the potentialities of opera, when the word ‘Mahagonny’ was mentioned and with it the notion of a ‘paradise city’. The idea instantly seized me, and with a view to developing it and trying out the musical style I had in mind I set the five ‘Mahagonny Songs’ from Brecht’s Devotions for the Home, combining them in a small-scale dramatic form to make a ‘Songspiel’ which was performed at Baden-Baden that summer. This Baden-Baden Mahagonny was thus nothing but a stylistic exercise for the opera proper, which had already been started and was taken up again as soon as the style had been tested. Brecht and I worked on its libretto for almost a year. The score was completed in November 1929.
The ‘Song’ form established in the Baden-Baden piece, and carried on in such subsequent works as The Threepenny Opera, the Berlin Requiem and Happy End, was of course inadequate for a full-length opera; it needed to be supplemented by other, larger-scale forms. None the less the simple ballad style had to be maintained.
The content of this opera is the history of a city: its foundation, its early crises, followed by the decisive turning-point in its evolution, its golden age and its decline. These constitute ‘moral tableaux for the present day’, projected on a large surface. It was a choice which allowed us to use the purest form of epic theatre, which is likewise the purest form of musical theatre. They make a sequence of twenty-one self-contained musical forms, each being a self-contained scene and each introduced by an inscription in narrative form. The music therefore no longer furthers the plot but only starts up once a situation has been arrived at. The libretto accordingly was arranged from the outset so as to represent a linear sequence of situations which add up to a dramatic form only in the course of their musically fixed dynamic succession.
[‘Anmerkungen zu meiner Oper “Mahagonny”’, from Kurt Weill: Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. David Drew, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1975, p. 56. Reprinted from Die Musik, March 1930, Jg 22 Nr 6, p. 29.]
INTRODUCTION TO THE PROMPT-BOOK OF THE OPERA
Mahagonny
by Kurt Weill
The Threepenny Opera represented an attempt to revive the earliest form of musical theatre. The music in question does not further the plot; each entrance of the music, rather, amounts to an interruption of the plot. The epic form of theatre is a step-by-step juxtaposition of situations. This makes it the perfect form of musical theatre, since self-contained musical forms can only express situations, and the juxtaposition of situations according to musical criteria leads to that heightened form of musical theatre, an opera.
In The Threepenny Opera the plot had to be advanced in the intervals between the musical numbers. This led to something like a form of ‘dialogue opera’, a cross between opera and play.
With The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny the material permits of construction strictly according to the laws of music. For the chronicle form here adopted is nothing but a ‘juxtaposition of situations’. So each new situation in the history of the city of Mahagonny is introduced by an inscription which provides a bridge to the next scene in narrative form.
Two men and a woman, on the run from the constabulary, are stuck in a desolate area. They decide to found a city in which every man arriving from the gold coast can get his requirements satisfied. A ‘paradise city’ consequently springs up, whose inhabitants lead an idyllic life of contemplation. Sooner or later however the men from the gold coast become dissatisfied with it. Discontent sets in. Prices fall. During the night of the typhoon, while it is bearing down on the city, Jim Mahoney discovers the city’s new law. It is ‘Anything goes’. The typhoon veers away. Life goes on according to the new laws. The city blooms. People’s requirements multiply – prices likewise. For anything goes: yes, but only so long as you can pay for it. Even Jim Mahoney gets condemned to death when he runs out of money. His execution sparks off a vast demonstration against the cost-of-living increases that herald the city’s fall.
That is the story of the city of Mahagonny. It is conveyed in a loose form of juxtaposed ‘twentieth-century moral tableaux’. It is a parable of modern life. The play’s protagonist is the city. This springs from people’s requirements, and it is these requirements that lead to its rise and fall. The individual phases of the city’s history however are shown exclusively through their impact on people. For just as people’s requirements influence the development of the city, so does the development of the city in turn influence people’s attitudes. All the songs in this opera are accordingly expressions of the masses, even where it is a single representative of those masses that sings them. At the start the group of founders is set against the group of newcomers. At the end of Act I [i.e. after scene II] the group supporting the new law is fighting the group of its opponents. The fate of the individual is only shown in passing, and then only when it stands for the fate of the city.
It would be wrong to look for any psychological or topical links except within the framework of this basic idea.
The name ‘Mahagonny’ signifies nothing except the notion of a city. Phonetic (sound) reasons determined its choice. The city’s geographical location is not relevant.
It is not at all advisable to tilt the performance of this work in the direction of irony or the grotesque. The events are not symbolic but typical, and this entails the utmost economy of scenic means and individual expression on the part of the actors. The directing of the singers in their capacity as actors, the movements of the chorus, indeed the whole style of performance in this opera are all determined by the style of the music. This music is never in the least illustrative. It sets out to realise human attitudes in the various circumstances leading to the city’s rise and fall. Human attitudes are already so embodied in the music that a simple, natural interpretation of the music will establish the right style for their portrayal. The actor accordingly can limit himself to the simplest and most natural gests.
In staging the opera it must always be borne in mind that one is dealing with self-contained musical forms. Hence it is important firmly to establish its purely musical development and to group the actors in such a way as to allow something close to a concert performance. Its style is neither naturalistic nor symbolic. It would be better described as ‘real’, since it shows life as represented in the sphere of art. Any exaggeration in the direction of emotion or ballet-like stylisation should be avoided.
Caspar Neher’s projections are an essential part of the material going to make up the performance (and should accordingly be sent out to theatres along with the music). These projections make use of a painter’s resources to provide an independent illustration of the events on stage. They supply visual aids to the history of the city, to be projected on a screen or between the individual scenes. The actor performs his scenes in front of the screen, and no more props are needed than are essential for him to clarify his performance. It is an opera that does not call for any use of complex stage machinery. The important thing is to have a few good projectors, together with an adroit arrangement of surfaces so that the pictures and still more the explanatory writing can be clearly understood from all parts of the house. The set needs to be so simple as to be equally well tra
nsferable from the theatre to any old platform. The solo scenes should be played as close to the audience as possible. It is therefore advisable not to sink the orchestra pit but to make it level with the stalls and build out a platform from the stage in such a way as to allow some scenes to be played in among the orchestra.
[‘Vorwort zum Regiebuch der Oper “Mahagonny”’, from Kurt Weill: Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. David Drew, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1975, p. 57, reprinted from Anbruch, Vienna, Jan 1930, Jg 12 Nr 1, p. 5. Drew cites Anbruch’s accompanying comment that Weill, Neher and Brecht were preparing a prompt-book for supplying to any theatre staging the work. This however seems not to have got beyond note form, as translated below, nor did Brecht in fact collaborate, his own ‘Notes to the Opera’ (p. 345ff) being independently written later. Weill wanted his Foreword to precede the notes that now follow.]
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STAGE REALISATION OF THE
OPERA The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
by Kurt Weill and Caspar Neher
General
The background is formed by a big wooden (or canvas) screen which ideally should be capable of being pushed aside. Downstage a half-curtain 2.50 metres high running on a wire. Built out into the orchestra pit a semi-circular apron, size determined by the size of the orchestra, edged by a line of small lamps that can come into operation each time a scene is played on the apron. From its middle a gangway leads up on to the main stage. To start with it runs horizontally from the front of the apron, then it goes slantwise across the footlights on to the stage.
With respect to set and costumes, it is important to avoid any tendency to Wild West and Cowboy romanticism, as also any stressing of a typically American ambience.
Act I
No. 1. The dialogue between Fatty and Moses to be sluggish and lazy and continually petering out.
No. 5. The side gangway is now a passenger gangway at the docks in Mahagonny and bears a sign ‘To the boats’. Downstage left is a signpost not unlike a small gallows with a legible inscription saying ‘To Mahagonny’. On the same side there is a big blackboard which can be chalked on. At the top it says ‘Prices in the City of Mahagonny’.
The pictures of girls (p. 181) are rolled up like maps and hung on a cord in front of the list of prices. They are drawn in the Japanese manner. At the start of the scene the four men are on the apron. The whole scene is played partly on the apron, partly on the front part of the stage. [… At the end of the scene] Jim holds Jenny back and remains with her on the apron as the half-curtain closes behind them. […]
No. 7. Half-curtain open. The lorry of scene 1 has been transformed into a kind of bar, inscribed ‘The As-You-Like-It Tavern’. As Begbick gets more and more worked up the two men remain maliciously relaxed, which only adds to Begbick’s anger. Their interpolations are accompanied by broad grins. […]
No. 9. Half-curtain open. Again the As-You-Like-It Tavern. Minor improvements and developments however show that a certain amount of time has passed, during which the city has expanded. […] At the beginning of the row [He jumps to his feet, p. 192], the male members of the chorus are relatively uninvolved. They merely express their resentment at having their rest disturbed. The more the row gets under way, the more scornful and threatening their attitude towards Jim … till they become like a street riot. […]
No. 10. All movement on stage is frozen. At figure 138 [of the musical introduction] projection number 10 (people fleeing). People fleeing rush across the front of the stage from left to right, with hand carts, luggage, women, children, animals; a wounded man is led past.… [Just before the entry of the chorus] the whole ensemble moves down to the front of the stage. [At its end] all disperse in different directions. A wind gets up, driving scraps of paper, leaves etc. before it.
The whole representation of the typhoon must take place without noises; there must be no storm or rain effects. When the chorus crashes [on its dispersal] Jenny, Begbick, Jake, Bill and Joe are left lying downstage motionless with their faces to the ground.
No. 11. Posters are stuck up on the wall saying ‘It is prohibited…’.
Act 2
[…]
No. 13. Between numbers 12 and 13, projections 12, 13 and 14 are shown one after the other in total silence. They show the transition from a simple gold-prospectors’ town to a modern city. Over each of them stand the words ‘Do it’ in big letters. […]
No. 15. At figure 63 [i.e. at the end of their duet, p. 210] Joe and Jim pose in an attitude of friendship and are photographed by a press photographer. At [the Referee’s entry] the combatants are weighed on a big decimal machine, Moses first, then Joe. […]
No. 17. By the footlights stands a lantern. Against it, on a little platform, Jim stands in a wooden box that covers him from his neck to his knees. He is being put on public view. At first one or two people pass by him on their own during the short musical interludes. After that he is entirely alone. It is night. No light other than the lantern. […]
Act 3
No. 18. A stand has been put up, consisting of three parts: one upstage centre, with left and right adjoining sections running slantwise downstage. It is so constructed that each row of seats is about 50 cm higher than the one in front. Right at the top behind the seats there is beer on tap. A plain wooden table stands in the centre at the bottom.
Moses’s speech for the prosecution (‘Never yet’, p. 222) is delivered like a universally familiar song which a tedious formality demands; nobody listens to it; instead they are all following the bribery negotiations, and Moses himself is only interested in squeezing all he can out of the accused. During the murder case the spectators read the paper, smoke, drink beer. It is only with the opening of the case against Jimmy Gallagher that they start to show some interest […]
No. 19 [20 in piano score]. [Initial stage direction as in our text, except that instead of the electric chair there is a makeshift gallows. As Jim sings ‘Dreams have all one ending’ (see editorial notes)] enter right a number of men, who quickly pass by with a preoccupied air and disappear into the doorway of the As-You-Like-It Tavern (now the height of elegance, complete with revolving door etc.). […]
After the words ‘Is nothing but the grave’ the half-curtain closes. Behind it Moses can be heard giving the order ‘Ready!’ (p. 232). Lights throughout the theatre flicker and suddenly go out. Then the small lamps along the apron light up. Begbick gets up, goes to the blackboard, crosses out the words ‘Sold Out’ and substitutes ‘100 dollars’. She has some fresh whisky bottles under her arm. Jenny and Bill enter through the half-curtain. Bill and the murder-case man each give her a hundred-dollar bill and take a bottle of whisky. Throughout the next scene Begbick sits under the blackboard, saying nothing, but clasping her two hundred-dollar notes.
Ditto [21 in piano score]. The [four] men start singing the song of God in Mahagonny. […] Moses appears through the half-curtain wearing a long black coat, with his hat right down over his eyes. The men are amazed that God should actually appear. At first their answers are highly disconcerted, till in the end they rebel with ‘For we are in Hell and always have been!’ (p. 232). At the ensuing Furioso they break up the blackboard and the chairs. Arming themselves with chair legs, planks and revolvers they rush off through the half-curtain on to the main stage.
Finale [i.e. our no. 20]. [Initial stage direction as in our text, except:] Each of the groups consists of about five to seven people. […] At the last line the wooden screen parts in the middle, revealing a great number of groups, who advance in between the leading columns. […] They all start moving forward as if the entire demonstration, spreading right across the stage, were proposing to march into the auditorium. When they are almost down to the footlights the main curtain cuts them off.
[‘Vorschläge zur szenischen Aufführung der Oper “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny”’ in the Kurt Weill Archive. Our translation is of extracts from a transcript kindly lent by David Drew, shortened to eliminate points already in our tex
t or otherwise irrelevant. In the original the scene and page references were all to the 1929 piano score; we have varied them to refer to our text. The actual date of these ‘Suggestions’ is November or December 1929, i.e. more than a year before the Leipzig premiere. Drew suggests that too many of them were then found to be unworkable for the collaborators to go ahead with their planned publication.]
Editorial Notes
1. SONGS, SONGSPIEL, OPERA
Possibly the first of Brecht’s writings about his mythical city was a fragmentary scene with two whores headed ‘AUF NACH MAHAGONNY’, which seems to bear no relation at all to the subsequent opera. Already before leaving Bavaria however he had begun writing the ‘Mahagonny Songs’, of which three were included in his 1924 plan for his first collection of poems, the Devotions for the Home. There were four in all, each with a strongly American flavour (whisky, poker, Jack Dempsey, the moon of Alabama and so on), and in Berlin he added two more songs which his new collaborator Elisabeth Hauptmann actually wrote for him in English. These are almost the only tangible evidence of the kind of theme discussed by Brecht and Kurt Weill when they first met nearly three years later, shortly after the publication of the Devotions, which now included all six songs with Brecht’s own tunes. What they at once envisaged, it seems, was a large-scale opera in which Mahagonny would emerge as a contemporary Sodom or Gomorrah. But the immediate task which presented itself in May 1927 was the provision of a small-scale ‘scenic cantata’ for the forthcoming Baden-Baden music festival, and they decided to base this on the Mahagonny Songs. Weill accordingly set Songs 1 to 3 (omitting the still unpublished no. 4) and the two English-language parodies, while Brecht wrote a new poem to serve as a finale under the title ‘Aber dieses ganze Mahagonny’. The six songs were then alternated with orchestral interludes on the following pattern: Mahagonny Song no. 1 / Little March / Alabama Song / Vivace / Mahagonny Song no. 2 / Vivace assai / Benares Song / Sostenuto (Choral) / Mahagonny Song no. 3 / Vivace assai / Finale ‘Aber dieses ganze Mahagonny’. There was no dialogue, but the characters were given suitably Anglo-Saxon names: Jessie, Bessie, Charlie, Billy, Bobby and Jimmy. This was the work performed on 17 July, after which it was shelved for the next thirty years.
Brecht Collected Plays: 2: Man Equals Man; Elephant Calf; Threepenny Opera; Mahagonny; Seven Deadly Sins: Man Equals Man , Elephant Calf , Threepenny Ope (World Classics) Page 37