Kurt Weill's jazzy opera tells the story of a trap town where pleasure counts as the only law. What seems like paradise swiftly turns into hell.
Socially relevant musical theatre for one's own time – this was Kurt Weill's aim when he composed Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. Out of the blue, three criminals on the run establish a new city, Mahagonny, a 'trap of a city' that thoroughly exploits humanity's vices and lust for pleasure, accumulating a fortune in the process. Gradually this paradise of consumption turns into a hell in which pleasure and lust form the only moral law and where everything is permitted as long as you pay. For Ivo van Hove, director of a new production of Mahagonny, the jazzy opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht is more urgently relevant than ever. In a clean visual style, which focuses on the unclear boundary between the real and the virtual, he traces a link between the social crisis of the late 1920s and today. Van Hove: "We live in a time when divisions have never been so great. We are witnessing a new class struggle."
ca. 3h incl. interval
Free introduction (in Dutch) 1 hour prior to the performance
with Dutch and English surtitles
The creators
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Alejo Pérez
Conductor
Ivo Van Hove
Director
Jan Versweyveld
Set and lighting design
An D'Huys
Costume design
Koen Tachelet
Dramaturgy
Leonardo Capalbo
Jim Mahoney
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Tineke Van Ingelgem
Jenny Hill
Katharina Persicke
Jenny Hill
