Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
Date:
Time:
Location:
20.07.2025 , Sunday
20:00
Deutsche Oper, Bismarckstraße 35, 10627 Berlin, Germany
RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY will take place in Benedikt von Peter's production in the foyers and on the stage - guests can move freely between the venues and video screens. There will be free seating, including on mattresses.
Information about the work
Opera in three acts
Music by Kurt Weill
Text by Bertolt Brecht
World premiere: March 9, 1930 in Leipzig
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on July 17, 2025
2 hours 15 minutes / No intermission
In German with German and English surtitles
45 minutes before the start of the performance: Introduction in the foyer on the right
Recommended for ages 15 and up
About the play
At the beginning there is the founding of a city. Less out of an ideal than out of a state of absolute hopelessness, Widow Begbick, Fatty and Trinity Moses create a place in the world that is supposed to bring in money. They want to outwit the system that is sucking them dry, they want to finally be on the profit side. And so they christen their city "Mahagonny, the network city." But the system cannot be outwitted, the networks remain empty. Those who come to Mahagonny bring dissatisfaction instead of money. First and foremost Jim Mahoney, who states relentlessly: "But something is missing."
A profound disillusionment lurks beneath Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's "Lehrstück" - the song "We lost our big old mama" summarizes the atmosphere of the work. In a radical nihilistic project, the characters seek their common downfall: they eat and drink themselves to death, fuck and box themselves into the grave. Only Jim Mahoney is enmeshed in an idea of existence that raises the central questions of our time: How do we want to live? And: What does community mean?
About the production
Rethinking theater spaces, breaking up frontal forms - this is what characterizes the work of director Benedikt von Peter. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious theater prize Der Faust for his multi-room production of Luigi Nono's INTOLLERANZA. And with his interpretation of THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY he also makes new, up-close reception experiences possible: the entire opera house becomes the city of Mahagonny - both the stage and the foyers of the Deutsche Oper Berlin are used, the audience is part of a large entertainment machine that is inexorably tipping into an apocalyptic experiment.
Subject to change.
Information about the work
Opera in three acts
Music by Kurt Weill
Text by Bertolt Brecht
World premiere: March 9, 1930 in Leipzig
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on July 17, 2025
2 hours 15 minutes / No intermission
In German with German and English surtitles
45 minutes before the start of the performance: Introduction in the foyer on the right
Recommended for ages 15 and up
About the play
At the beginning there is the founding of a city. Less out of an ideal than out of a state of absolute hopelessness, Widow Begbick, Fatty and Trinity Moses create a place in the world that is supposed to bring in money. They want to outwit the system that is sucking them dry, they want to finally be on the profit side. And so they christen their city "Mahagonny, the network city." But the system cannot be outwitted, the networks remain empty. Those who come to Mahagonny bring dissatisfaction instead of money. First and foremost Jim Mahoney, who states relentlessly: "But something is missing."
A profound disillusionment lurks beneath Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's "Lehrstück" - the song "We lost our big old mama" summarizes the atmosphere of the work. In a radical nihilistic project, the characters seek their common downfall: they eat and drink themselves to death, fuck and box themselves into the grave. Only Jim Mahoney is enmeshed in an idea of existence that raises the central questions of our time: How do we want to live? And: What does community mean?
About the production
Rethinking theater spaces, breaking up frontal forms - this is what characterizes the work of director Benedikt von Peter. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious theater prize Der Faust for his multi-room production of Luigi Nono's INTOLLERANZA. And with his interpretation of THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY he also makes new, up-close reception experiences possible: the entire opera house becomes the city of Mahagonny - both the stage and the foyers of the Deutsche Oper Berlin are used, the audience is part of a large entertainment machine that is inexorably tipping into an apocalyptic experiment.
Subject to change.