About the work
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is an opera by Kurt Weill (music) to a libretto by Bertolt Brecht, premiered in 1930 at the Neues Theater in Leipzig. The premiere caused a theatrical scandal through its social criticism. The work is the duo's most ambitious and large-scale collaboration.
Plot
Three fugitive criminals found the city of Mahagonny in the middle of the desert—a "net city" devoted solely to pleasure and money, luring men with the promise of boundless gratification. The lumberjack Jim Mahoney realises that the only true crime in this city is to be without money: whoever cannot pay is sentenced to death. When Jim cannot settle his bill, he is executed, while the city sinks into chaos and ruin—an emblem of unleashed capitalism.
Cultural significance
Mahagonny is the most significant "song opera" of the Weimar Republic and contains, in the Alabama Song (later recorded by the Doors and David Bowie), a worldwide hit. Weill's fusion of jazz, song, and grand operatic form with Brecht's critique of capitalism created a radically new music theatre. Banned by the Nazis, the work today belongs to the repertoire of major opera houses and is regarded as a milestone in twentieth-century operatic history.