The Threepenny Opera


The Threepenny Opera is a 1928 German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much contribution Hauptmann might have made to the libretto, Brecht is usually listed as sole author and Hauptmann as the sole translator, which was probably an unfair oversimplification typical of the time.
The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.
With influences from jazz and German dance music, songs from The Threepenny Opera have been widely covered and become standards, most notably "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" and "Seeräuberjenny".
The Threepenny Opera has been performed in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Russia, Italy, and Hungary. It has also been adapted to film and radio. The German-language version from 1928 entered the public domain in the United States in 2024.

Background

Origins

In the winter of 1927–28, Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's lover at the time, received a copy of Gay's play from friends in England and, fascinated by the female characters and its critique of the condition of the London poor, began translating it into German. Brecht at first took little interest in her translation project, but in April 1928 he attempted to interest the impresario Ernst Josef Aufricht in a play he was writing called Fleischhacker, which he had, in fact, already promised to another producer. Aufricht was seeking a production to launch his new theatre company at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, but was not impressed by the sound of Fleischhacker. Brecht immediately proposed a translation of The Beggar's Opera instead, claiming that he himself had been translating it. He delivered Hauptmann's translation to Aufricht, who immediately signed a contract for it. Brecht proposed Weill to write the music, and spent the next four months writing the libretto.
Brecht used four songs by the French poet François Villon. Rather than translate the French himself, he used the translations by , the same source he had been using since his earliest plays.
The first act of both works begins with the same melody, but that is the only material Weill borrowed from the melodies Johann Christoph Pepusch arranged for The Beggar's Opera. The title Die Dreigroschenoper was determined only a week before the opening; it had been previously announced as simply The Beggar's Opera, with the subtitle "Die Luden-Oper".
Writing in 1929, Weill made the political and artistic intents of the work clear:
With the Dreigroschenoper we reach a public which either did not know us at all or thought us incapable of captivating listeners... Opera was founded as an aristocratic form of art... If the framework of opera is unable to withstand the impact of the age, then this framework must be destroyed... In the Dreigroschenoper, reconstruction was possible insofar as here we had a chance of starting from scratch.

Weill claimed at the time that "music cannot further the action of the play or create its background", but achieves its proper value when it interrupts the action at the right moments."

Music

Weill's score shows the influence of jazz and German dance music of the time. The orchestration involves a small ensemble with a good deal of doubling-up on instruments.

Premieres

Germany

The Threepenny Opera was first performed at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in 1928 on a set designed by Caspar Neher. Despite an initially poor reception, it became a great success, playing 400 times in the next two years. The performance was a springboard for one of the best known interpreters of Brecht and Weill's work, Lotte Lenya, who was married to Weill. The production became a great favourite of Berlin's "smart set" — Count Harry Kessler recorded in his diary meeting at the performance an ambassador and a director of the Dresdner Bank, and concluded "One simply has to have been there."
Critics did not fail to notice that Brecht had included the four Villon songs translated by Ammer. Brecht responded by saying that he had "a fundamental laxity in questions of literary property."
By 1933, when Weill and Brecht were forced to leave Germany by the Nazi seizure of power, the play had been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times on European stages.

France

A French version produced by Gaston Baty and written by Ninon Steinhof and André Mauprey was presented in October 1930 at the Théâtre Montparnasse in Paris. It was rendered as L'Opéra de quat'sous; , or four pennies being the idiomatically equivalent French expression for Threepence.

Russia

In 1930 the work premiered in Moscow at the [Kamerny Theatre, directed by Alexander Tairov. It was the only one of Brecht's works to be performed in Russia during his lifetime. Izvestia disapproved: "It is high time that our theatres ceased playing homage to petit-bourgeois bad taste and instead turned to more relevant themes."

Hungary

The first Hungarian performance of the play was at the Comedy Theatre of Budapest, on 6 September 1930. It was titled A koldus operája, which is a reference to Gay's original opera. The play was translated by Jenő Heltai, who mixed Weill and Pepusch' s music, and also Brecht and Gay's texts. The director was Ernő Szabolcs. The cast included Pál Jávor, Franciska Gaal, Gerő Mály and Ella Gombaszögi.

United States

America was introduced to the work by the film version of G. W. Pabst, which opened in New York in 1931.
The first American production, adapted into English by Gifford Cochran and Jerrold Krimsky and staged by Francesco von Mendelssohn, featured Robert Chisholm as Macheath. It opened on Broadway at the Empire Theatre, on April 13, 1933, and closed after 12 performances. Mixed reviews praised the music but slammed the production, with the critic Gilbert Gabriel calling it "a dreary enigma".

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the first fully staged performance was given on 9 February 1956, under Berthold Goldschmidt, although there had been a concert performance in 1933, and a semi-staged performance on 28 July 1938. In between, on 8 February 1935 Edward Clark conducted the first British broadcast of the work. It received scathing reviews from Ernest Newman and other critics. But the most savage criticism came from Weill himself, who described it privately as "the worst performance imaginable … the whole thing was completely misunderstood". But his criticisms seem to have been for the concept of the piece as a Germanised version of The Beggar's Opera, rather than for Clark's conducting of it, of which Weill made no mention.

Italy

The first Italian production, titled L'opera da tre soldi and directed by Giorgio Strehler, premiered at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan on 27 February 1956 in the presence of Bertolt Brecht. The cast included: Tino Carraro, Mario Carotenuto, , Milly, . The conductor was Bruno Maderna. Set designs were by Luciano Damiani and Teo Otto; costume design by Ezio Frigerio.

Roles

Casts (1920s-1960s)

Notable Replacements

Original Berlin Production (1928)

Notable Replacements

West End Revival (1972)

Notable Replacements

Broadway Revival (2006)

Overview

Set in Victorian London, the play focuses on Macheath, an amoral antihero who leads a criminal gang, committing robbery, arson, rape and murder.
Macheath marries Polly Peachum. This displeases her father, who controls the beggars of London, and he endeavours to have Macheath hanged. His attempts are hindered by the fact that the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, is Macheath's old army comrade. Still, Peachum exerts his influence and eventually gets Macheath arrested and sentenced to hang. Macheath escapes this fate via a deus ex machina moments before the execution when, in an unrestrained parody of a happy ending, a messenger from the Queen arrives to pardon Macheath and grant him the title of baron. The details of the original 1928 text have often been substantially modified in later productions.
A draft narration by Brecht for a concert performance begins: "You are about to hear an opera for beggars. Since this opera was intended to be as splendid as only beggars can imagine, and yet cheap enough for beggars to be able to watch, it is called the Threepenny Opera."

Prologue

A street singer entertains the crowd with the illustrated murder ballad or Bänkelsang, titled "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer". As the song concludes, a well-dressed man leaves the crowd and crosses the stage. This is Macheath, alias "Mack the Knife".

Act 1

The story begins in the shop of Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, the boss of London's beggars, who outfits and trains the beggars in return for a slice of their takings from begging. In the first scene, the extent of Peachum's iniquity is immediately exposed. Filch, a new beggar, is obliged to bribe his way into the profession and agree to pay over to Peachum 50 percent of whatever he made; the previous day he had been severely beaten up for begging within the area of jurisdiction of Peachum's protection racket.
After finishing with the new man, Peachum becomes aware that his grown daughter Polly did not return home the previous night. Peachum, who sees his daughter as his own private property, concludes that she has become involved with Macheath. This does not suit Peachum at all, and he becomes determined to thwart this relationship and destroy Macheath.
The scene shifts to an empty stable where Macheath himself is preparing to marry Polly once his gang has stolen and brought all the necessary food and furnishings. No vows are exchanged, but Polly is satisfied, and everyone sits down to a banquet. Since none of the gang members can provide fitting entertainment, Polly gets up and sings "Seeräuberjenny", a revenge fantasy in which she is a scullery maid turning pirate queen to order the execution of her bosses and customers. The gang becomes nervous when the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, arrives, but it's all part of the act; Brown had served with Mack in England's colonial wars and had intervened on numerous occasions to prevent the arrest of Macheath over the years. The old friends duet in the "Kanonen-Song". In the next scene, Polly returns home and defiantly announces that she has married Macheath by singing the "Barbarasong". She stands fast against her parents' anger, but she inadvertently reveals Brown's connections to Macheath which her parents subsequently use to their advantage.

Act 2

Polly warns Macheath that her father will try to have him arrested. He is finally convinced that Peachum has enough influence to do it and makes arrangements to leave London, explaining the details of his bandit "business" to Polly so she can manage it in his absence. Before he leaves town, he stops at his favorite brothel, where he sees his ex-lover, Jenny. They sing the "Zuhälterballade" about their days together, but Macheath doesn't know Mrs Peachum has bribed Jenny to turn him in. Despite Brown's apologies, there's nothing he can do, and Macheath is dragged away to jail. After he sings the "Ballade vom angenehmen Leben", another Villon/Ammer song, another girlfriend, Lucy and Polly show up at the same time, setting the stage for a nasty argument that builds to the "Eifersuchtsduett". After Polly leaves, Lucy engineers Macheath's escape. When Mr Peachum finds out, he confronts Brown and threatens him, telling him that he will unleash all of his beggars during Queen Victoria's coronation parade, ruining the ceremony and costing Brown his job.

Act 3

Jenny comes to the Peachums' shop to demand her money for the betrayal of Macheath, which Mrs Peachum refuses to pay. Jenny reveals that Macheath is at Suky Tawdry's house. When Brown arrives, determined to arrest Peachum and the beggars, he is horrified to learn that the beggars are already in position on the parade route and only Mr Peachum can stop them. To placate Peachum, Brown's only option is to arrest Macheath and have him executed. In the next scene, Macheath is back in jail and desperately trying to raise a sufficient bribe to get out again, even as the gallows are being assembled.
Soon it becomes clear that neither Polly nor the gang members can, or are willing to, raise any money, and Macheath prepares to die. He laments his fate and poses the 'Marxist' questions: "What's picking a lock compared to buying shares? What's breaking into a bank compared to founding one? What's murdering a man compared to employing one?".
Macheath asks everyone for forgiveness. Then a sudden and intentionally comical reversal: Peachum announces that in this opera mercy will prevail over justice and that a messenger on horseback will arrive ; Brown arrives as that messenger and announces that Macheath has been pardoned by the queen and granted a title, a castle and a pension. The cast then sings the Finale, which ends with a plea that wrongdoing not be punished too harshly as life is harsh enough.

Musical numbers

Prelude

1. Ouverture

2. Die Moritat von Mackie Messer

Act 1

3. Morgenchoral des Peachum

4. Anstatt-dass-Song

5. Hochzeits-Lied

6. Seeräuberjenny

7. Kanonen-Song

8. Liebeslied

9. Barbarasong

10. I. Dreigroschenfinale

Act 2

11. Melodram

11a. Polly's Lied

12. Ballade von der sexuellen Hörigkeit

13. Zuhälterballade

14. Ballade vom angenehmen Leben

15. Eifersuchtsduett

15b. Arie der Lucy

16. II. Dreigroschenfinale

Act 3

17. Lied von der Unzulänglichkeit menschlichen Strebens

17a. Reminiszenz

18. Salomonsong

19. Ruf aus der Gruft

20. Grabschrift

20a. Gang zum Galgen

21. III. Dreigroschenfinale

Reception

Opera or musical theatre?

The ambivalent nature of The Threepenny Opera, derived from an 18th-century ballad opera but conceived in terms of 20th-century musical theatre, has led to discussion as to how it can best be characterised. According to critic and musicologist Hans Keller, the work is "the weightiest possible lowbrow opera for highbrows and the most full-blooded highbrow musical for lowbrows".
The Weill authority Stephen Hinton notes that "generic ambiguity is a key to the work's enduring success", and points out the work's deliberate hybrid status:
For Weill was not just 'the most consistent reaction to Richard Wagner| Wagner'; it also marked a positive step towards an operatic reform. By explicitly and implicitly shunning the more earnest traditions of the opera house, Weill created a mixed form which incorporated spoken theatre and popular musical idioms. Parody of operatic convention – of Romantic lyricism and happy endings – constitutes a central device.

"Mack the Knife"

The work's opening and closing lament, "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer," was written just before the Berlin premiere, when actor Harald Paulsen threatened to quit if his character did not receive an introduction; this creative emergency resulted in what would become the work's most popular song, later translated into English by Marc Blitzstein as "Mack the Knife", and now a jazz standard that Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Michael Bublé, Robbie Williams and countless others have performed. In 2015, the Library of Congress added the recordings of "Mack the Knife" by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin to the National Recording Registry. It has been named one of the hundred most popular songs of the twentieth century.
In 1986, American fast-food chain McDonald's launched an advertising campaign featuring a new mascot "Mac Tonight" loosely based on the lyrics "Mack the Knife" featuring a parody of the song. The advert, which was associated with a 10% increase in later diners in some Californian restaurants at the time, led to a lawsuit by Bobby Darin's son, Dodd Mitchell Darin. The lawsuit concerned the parody created by McDonald's stated that it was in violation of copyright law. The case was settled outside of court without requiring a court hearing. Following this the mascot was mostly dropped from McDonalds marketing.

"Pirate Jenny"

"Pirate Jenny" is another well-known song from the work, which has since been recorded by Nina Simone, Judy Collins, Tania Tsanaklidou, and Marc Almond, among others. In addition, Steeleye Span recorded it under the alternative title "The Black Freighter". Recently, the drag queen Sasha Velour has made an adaptation by the same name for an installment of One Dollar Drags, an anthology of short films.

"The Second Threepenny Finale"

Under the title "What Keeps Mankind Alive?", this number has been recorded by the Pet Shop Boys on the B-side of their 1993 single "Can You Forgive Her?", and on two albums. Tom Waits covered it on two albums, and William S. Burroughs performed it in a 1994 documentary.

Revivals

Germany

After World War II, the first stage performance in Berlin was a rough production of The Threepenny Opera at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. Wolf Von Eckardt described the 1945 performance where audience members climbed over ruins and passed through a tunnel to reach the open-air auditorium deprived of its ceiling. In addition to the smell of dead bodies trapped beneath the rubble, Eckardt recollects the actors themselves were "haggard, starved, in genuine rags. Many of the actors... had only just been released from concentration camp. They sang not well, but free." Barrie Kosky produced the work again at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in 2021. The production travelled to the Ruhrfestspiele in 2022, the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Teatro Argentina, Rome, the Edinburgh International Festival in 2023, to the 2024 Adelaide Festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2025.

France

The Pabst film The Threepenny Opera was shown in its French version in 1931. In 1937 there was a production by Ernst Josef Aufricht at the Théâtre de l'Étoile which failed, though Brecht himself had attended rehearsals. The work was not revived in France until after World War II.

United Kingdom

In London, West End and Off-West End revivals include:
In 2014, the Robert David MacDonald and Jeremy Sams translation toured the UK, presented by the Graeae Theatre Company with Nottingham Playhouse, New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse.

United States

In 1946, four performances of the work were given at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Northwestern University gave six performances in 1948 in Evanston, Illinois. In 1952, Leonard Bernstein conducted a concert performance of the work at the Brandeis University Creative Arts Festival in the Adolph Ullman Amphitheatre, Waltham, Massachusetts, to an audience of nearly 5,000. Marc Blitzstein, who translated the work, narrated.
At least five Broadway and Off-Broadway revivals have been mounted in New York City.
Regional productions include:
German director G. W. Pabst made a 1931 German- and French-language version simultaneously, a common practice in the early days of sound films.
Another version,, was directed by Wolfgang Staudte in West Germany in 1963, starring Curd Jürgens as Macheath, Hildegard Knef as Jenny, Gert Fröbe as Peachum, and Sammy Davis Jr. as Moritat singer.
In 1989 an American version was released, directed by Menahem Golan, with Raul Julia as Macheath, Richard Harris as Peachum, Julie Walters as Mrs Peachum, Bill Nighy as Tiger Brown, Julia Migenes as Jenny, and Roger Daltrey as the Street Singer.

Radio adaptations

In October 1978, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a complete radio production of the Ralph Manheim/John Willett translation directed by Ian Cotterell and Elaine Padmore to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Threepenny Opera 's publication. The cast included Paul Bentley as Macheath, Sarah Badel as Polly, Johanna Peters as Mrs Peachum, Harold Kasket as Mr. Peachum, Jan Waters as Lucy, Julia McKenzie as Jenny, Peter Pratt as Tiger Brown, Roderick Horn as the Ballad Singer and John Hollis as The Narrator.
In 2009, BBC Radio 3 in collaboration with the BBC Philharmonic broadcast a complete radio production of the Michael Feingold translation directed by Nadia Molinari with the music performed by the BBC Philharmonic. The cast included Joseph Millson as Macheath, Elen Rhys as Polly/Whore, Ruth Alexander-Rubin as Mrs Peachum/Whore, Zubin Varla as Mr. Peachum/Rev. Kimball, Rosalie Craig as Lucy/Whore, Ute Gfrerer as Jenny, Conrad Nelson as Tiger Brown and HK Gruber as the Ballad Singer.

English translations

Recordings are in German, unless otherwise specified.