About the work
Kurt Weill composed this two-act school opera in 1930 to a text by Bertolt Brecht, based on Elisabeth Hauptmann’s adaptation of a Japanese Noh play (“Taniko”) via Arthur Waley’s English translation. It premiered on 23 June 1930 at Berlin’s Zentralinstitut für Erziehung und Unterricht, performed by students of the Academy for Church and School Music and broadcast live on radio.
Plot
A boy joins his sick teacher and other men on a dangerous mountain journey to fetch medicine for his ill mother in a distant city. When he himself collapses from exhaustion, the teacher asks him, according to the “great custom”, whether he agrees to be left behind and thrown into the valley – the boy says yes. His companions then push him from the mountainside.
Cultural significance
Within three years “Der Jasager” had been performed at more than 200 schools, making it one of the most successful teaching plays (Lehrstücke) of the Weimar Republic. After students criticised the boy’s unquestioning consent, Brecht wrote a counterpart, “Der Neinsager”, in which the boy objects instead.