In order to illuminate the political and social circumstances and influences under which the opera “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny” was created, it is crucial to outline the political climate in the 1920s in Germany first. Subsequently, the reader will learn more about the authors, Kurt Weill and his librettist Bertolt Brecht, the latter being of crucial importance to the political statement of the Mahagonny-opera. Finally, the consequences which Weill and Brecht draw from the political climate for the genesis of their works will be elucidated. Kurt Weill collaboration with the poet Bertolt Brecht is restricted to the years 1927 to 1931, when the Weimar Republic reached the high point of its “golden years” before in 1933, Hitler took over power in Germany. After the Second World War, Germany experienced its first democratic republic that brought a new liberty of opinion with it. During the era under Kaiser Wilhelm, there had been little scope for artistic and intellectual forces, but with the new democratic freedom the arts flourished throughout the time of the Weimar Republic. Most of all, the 1920s in Germany were a time of uncertainty and political insecurity, on the one hand, coming from outside Germany, like the Contract of Versailles which made Germany give away all colonies and huge sums of money to the allies. This lead to an inflation which reached its peak in 1923 before the vicious circle was stopped with the help of a monetary reform and loan from foreign countries, especially from the USA. The loans were to contribute strongly to Germanys undoing in a few years later when America pulled back its credits itself being in a desolate state due to the world economic crisis. However, the new Reichskanzler Stresemann, voted in 1923, managed an economical upswing, which would later be referred to as the “golden twenties” with regard to the growth in technology and industry. 1

But on the other hand, Germany was also shaken from the inside at that time: revolts, political murders, attempts of coup d’état and insurrections mirrored the discontent and the disagreement of the German people. The Black Friday and the stock marked crash in 1929 finally led to the economical downfall of Germany connected with poverty and a high unemployment rate - for the second time in just a few years, the country went into an economical chaos. This prompted the strong popularity of the extreme political parties at the beginnings of the 1930s.

The upcoming fascism was underestimated by most artists in the Weimar Republic, also by most of the left-winged intellectuals. But some progressive artists (e.g. Kurt Tucholsky, Bert Brecht, Hans Eisler and Kurt Weill) realised the importance of contemporary art, which reflects the political and social circumstances. Born out of the feeling of the share of

¹ Jürgen Schebera, Kurt Weill - an illustrated life, Wiesbaden (1990), p. 89

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responsibility ² Hans Eisler, seeing the dangers of political unawareness in arts, even admonished his contemporaries to convey political statements in their works. Bert Brecht began his career as a journalist for the newspaper of the left USPD in 1919, but soon began working as a playwright. His first dramatic works (Trommeln in der Nacht, 1922; Baal, 1923) already show his political standpoint: they are a denunciation of the bourgeoisie, accusing them of inactivity in the revolution in 1919. ³ In his next play Im Dickicht der Städte (1923) Brecht uses the American “milieu” as a model of capitalism like it is done later in the time of his collaboration with Weill in “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny”. In terms of style, Brecht’s libretti are at variance with the expressionists through applying colloquial realistic language, which presents one part of Brecht's newly developed idea of the epic theatre (he first used this term in 1926 ⁴ ) in contrast to the dramatic theatre. In epic theatre, the spectator shall not involve in the play emotionally but regard it rather like an observer of a sports event, ⁵ thus, in an objective way. Epic theatre developed out of an attempt “to penetrate the mechanics of the bourgeois world of his time (…). His first recognition [in looking at the function of theatre] was that traditional forms of drama were no longer suited to representing the processes and life stories of this society.” ⁶ Just like Brecht, in those years, Weill also tried to invent something new and more appropriate for the time: an opera, which reflects its own time and therefore forms a contrast to the Wagnerian tradition. Kurt Weill was born in Dessau as the son of a Jewish priest in the year 1900. His first composition teachers, Albert Bing, Rudolf Krasselt and Engelbert Humperdinck, all stood in the late romantic tradition and taught their pupils in the Wagnerian Tradition. Perhaps the thoroughly traditional education and the resulting intellectual discontent induced Weill to search for another teacher whom he found in Berlin in 1920: Ferruccio Busoni was to be Weill’s most influential teacher. Both of them stood for a renewal of the genre opera and against the Wagnerian tradition. Busoni taught Weill the technique of the debility of the semitone, which is most of all recognisable in “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny”, “Die Sieben Todsünden“ and “Der Silbersee”. But Weill does not adapt his teacher’s mysticism and the transcendental elements; in the time of his collaboration with Brecht, Weill is even a declared opponent to religion. 7

² Gottfried Wagner, Weill und Brecht - das musikalische Zeittheater, München (1977), p. 28

³ Ibid., p. 40

⁴ Jürgen Schebera, Kurt Weill - An Illustrated Life, p. 145

⁵ Gottfried Wagner, Weill und Brecht - das musikalische Zeittheater, p. 42

⁶ Jürgen Schebera, Kurt Weill - An Illustrated Life, p. 146

⁷ Gottfried Wagner, Weill und Brecht - das musikalische Zeittheater, p. 50

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Weill’s strong relationship to theatre shows not only in his operas, but also in his instrumental works: almost every instrumental piece by Weill has got a textual basis. Therefore, he was not inexperienced in composing dramatic music as he did in co-operation with Brecht. Weill’s collaboration with Brecht began in April 1927 “with the idea of using the poet’s “Mahagonny-Gesänge” (from the collection Hauspostille) as the basis for the Songspiel Mahagonny” ⁸ . From that half-an-hour piece of music developed the full lengths three-act opera “Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny” in the following two years which was, though it still showed connections to its predecessor both thematically and musically, different in terms of musical harshness. The later work is not only divested of the non-tonal passages of the “Mahagonny-Songspiel” but the harmony is also clarified in the songs at those points where elements from the “free-style” had been allowed to intrude. ⁹ It can be speculated that these changes were made to serve the idea of the epic theatre, which allows or even demands simplicity on behalf of the conveyance of its political message.

Moreover, Weill had, concerning the music, the inclination to link classical structures with those of the entertainment music of their time, just like other composers tried (such as Ernst Krenek, Darius Milhaud and George Gershwin); above all, Weill borrowed from the rhythmic patterns of jazz.

Briefly summarised, the plot of the opera, that has to be understood in an allegorical way, is that three criminals (Leokadja Begbick, Dreieinigkeitsmoses and Willy) create the city of Mahagonny. Drinking, ga mbling, prize-fights and similar activities are the sole occupation of the inhabitants, and money rules. There are only two main characters, Jenny, a prostitute, and Paul Ackermann, a lumberjack. Mahagonny is threatened by a hurricane at the end of Act 1, and Act 2 following the hurricane nothing is forbidden and various scenes of debauchery occur. Jenny and Paul try to leave but Paul cannot pay his debts and is arrested. Another character arraigned for murder is not arrested because of bribery, but Paul has no money and is condemned to death for not paying for his whisky. The opera ends with discontent destroying the city, which burns as the inhabitants march away. ¹⁰ The first performance of the opera in Leipzig provoked “one of the greatest scandals in the history of 20 ^th -century music.” ¹¹ Being perturbed by the depravity of the libretto the houses Brunswick and Kassel where further productions of the opera were to follow insisted “on cuts

⁸ http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id=561915187&hitnum=

1&section=opera.007478, 10.11.04

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Aufstieg%20und%20Fall%20der%20Stadt%20Mahagonny,

20.11.04

¹¹ http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id=561915187&hitnum=

1&section=opera.007478, 10.11.04

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