Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
Kurt Weill
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
-
Alejo Pérez
Conductor
Max Van Engen
Director
Jan Versweyveld
Set and lighting design
An D'Huys
Costume design
Koen Tachelet
Dramaturgy
Leonardo Capalbo
-
Tineke Van Ingelgem
Katharina Persicke
Photos
Reactions
"Een beklijvend verhaal, in een al even beklijvende enscenering met uitstekende muziek."
De Standaard
"Naast ons in de zaal zat een koppel dat voor het eerst een operaticket had gekocht. 'We vinden het geweldig, heel toegankelijk. Maar misschien kennen we er te weinig van,' zeiden ze enigszins bedeesd. Ze kennen er genoeg van."
De Tijd
"De mix van real en fake, van vervreemding en subjectiviteit, zorgt voor heel wat opzwepende of ontroerende momenten."
De Morgen
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