John Fulljames presents a new production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s furiously impassioned operatic satire on consumerism.
Director: John Fulljames
Starring: Christine Rice, Willard W. White, Anne Sofie von Otter, Kurt Streit, Peter Hoare, Darren Jeffery
The first ever Royal Opera staging of the great Brecht/Weill opera satirising the pursuit of money and pleasure. The productive partnership between playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill yielded this blistering political satire which received its Leipzig premiere in 1930.
Weill’s eclectic, jazz-infused score was heavily influenced by ragtime music. Its best-known melody, ‘Alabama Song’, has been kept alive in popular culture through cover versions by such artists as Ute Lemper, The Doors and David Bowie. Sung in English, this first Royal Opera staging is by Associate Director of Opera John Fulljames.
It features a superb cast as the dubious denizens of the fictional pleasure city of Mahagonny. Kurt Streit plays the wild lumberjack Jimmy, with Christine Rice as his sweetheart Jenny. Anne Sofie von Otter returns to The Royal Opera as the cunning Leokadja Begbick. The conductor is Mark Wigglesworth, who was recently announced as Music Director of English National Opera.