The Threepenny Opera

„Yes, go ahead and chase after happiness, / But don’t run too hard, / For everyone is chasing happiness, / While happiness runs along behind.“

In a London of indeterminate past, future, or present, survival and personal gain take precedence over moral scruples. For Mr. Peachum, the self-styled „King of the Beggars,“ even pity is a commodity. His business relies on equipping beggars with just the right amount of pathos to elicit maximum generosity from passersby. Naturally, he pockets the lionʼs share of the proceeds, for „first comes the grub, then comes the morals.“ Meanwhile, his daughter Polly has plans of her own: she marries the gangster Macheath—known as Mack the Knife. He is charming, ruthless, and exceptionally well-connected. For her father Peachum—a man who knows the harshness of the world—losing his daughter spells total ruin. He stops at nothing to hand Mackie over to the police.

Yet in this world, even the law is not incorruptible. Macheath can count on old ties: Police Chief Brown was once his „army buddy.“ The boundaries between crime and order, between right and wrong, are fluid. For „sadly, one has never heard / That something was right and stayed that way.“

Economic dependencies, growing social inequality, and a system that often feigns moral outrage only when it costs the least—these are themes that resonate just as strongly today as they did back then. Since its premiere in 1928, this „opera for beggars“ has lost none of its relevance, its biting edge, or its electrifying sound.

Recommended age: 14 and up

programme

Die Dreigroschenoper

Von Bertolt Brecht (Text) und Kurt Weill (Musik)unter Mitarbeit von Elisabeth Hauptmann