Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
Opera
Opera in three acts
Music by Kurt Weill
Text by Bertolt Brecht
Opera in three acts
Music by Kurt Weill
Text by Bertolt Brecht
Spatial theatre without borders
A town is founded in the middle of the desert. In Mahagonny, everything is allowed as long as you can pay - «but something is missing!». To escape the emptiness, the characters eat and drink themselves to death, fuck and punch themselves in the grave. Only in Jim Mahoney does the idea of a more humane existence quietly niggle. Between pub songs and avant-garde sounds, quotes from classical music and dance music, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill built a capitalist paradise in 1930 that is destroyed by its own promises. Benedikt von Peter's spectacular spatial production celebrates the 50th anniversary of Theater Basel and invites you to wander around the supposed paradise town of Mahagonny.
A production with the Deutsche Oper Berlin
on 21 August 2025