The Threepenny Opera

Low-life ballad opera

(Die Dreigroschenoper)
Weill
The Berlinized version of Gay’s Beggar’s Opera.
CAST  
Peachum, organizer of a gang of beggars Baritone
Mrs Peachum, his wife Contralto
Polly, their daughter Soprano
Macheath (Machie Messer), underworld gang leader Tenor
Brown, Metropolitan Commissioner of Police Baritone
Lucy, his daughter Soprano
Jenny, a hooker Soprano
A ballad singer Baritone
   
3 acts: running time approximately 2 hrs 15 mins depending upon the
production. Music alone: 1 hr 15 mins.

STORY

Prologue  London. Soho. A fair

We are in London shortly before a coronation and rubbing shoulders with pimps, hookers,
pickpockets, beggars and villains of every kind.
Song: The Ballad of Mac the Knife.

Act I Sc 1  Peachum’s beggars’ kitchen

Song: Peachum’s Morning Hymn (Peachum).

Peachum learns from Mrs Peachum that their daughter Polly is having it off with the gang
leader Mac the Knife.
Song: You can’t stop them (Peachum and Mrs Peachum).

Act I Sc 2  The HQ of Mac’s gang, a stable stacked with stolen goods

Mac and Polly are holding their wedding reception.

Song: The wedding song (four gang members).
Mac is not pleased with the low standard of efficiency and poor productivity of his gang. He
thinks they should go to the Harvard Business School. To cheer things up Polly sings.
Song: Pirate Jenny (Polly).

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The Metropolitan Commissioner of Police arrives, name of Brown. Hi Mac he says congratters
old man and as a married man I will of course continue to let you do anything you bloody like
so long as I get my cut.
Song: The Cannon Song (Mac and Brown).
Brown pushes off to see about the coronation which is happening next day. The gang disappear.
Polly and Mac bill and coo.
Song: Lovers’ Song (Mac and Polly).

Act I Sc 3  Back at the Peachums’

Peachum doesn’t want to lose Polly who is a nice little earner.

Song: The Barbara Song (Polly).
Then the First Threepenny Finale (Polly, Peachum, Mrs Peachum).

Act II Sc 1  Mac’s HQ

Mac leaves Polly to take a walk in Parliament Hill Fields. Peachum wants him arrested. Mrs
Peachum thinks he is in Cable Street with his harem of hookers. She wants to bribe one of the
girls to give him away. Polly says he is so close to the Metropolitan Commissioner nothing
could happen to him. But to be on the safe side she advises Mac to scarper. She will run the
gang while he is away.
Melodrame (words spoken over music): Polly and Mac say goodbye.
Song: Polly’s Song.
Song: The Ballad of Sexual Obsession (Mrs Peachum).

Act II Sc 2  A brothel in the East End

Mac sits with a large number of prostitutes and remembers the good times he had when
pimping for his old girlfriend Jenny.
Song: The Song of Immoral Earnings (Mac and Jenny).
Whilst duetting with Mac most affectionately Jenny gives a signal to the waiting cops who
arrest Mac.

Act II Sc 3  A prison

Brown says he is sorry to inconvenience his friend. Mac finds his standard of living has dropped.
Song: The Ballad of Good Living.
Brown’s daughter Lucy, one of Mac’s earlier fancy girls, plans to let him out of jail. Polly turns
up.
Song: Jealousy Duet (Polly and Lucy).
Lucy rounds on Polly and slags her off.
Song: Lucy’s Aria.
Mrs Peachum comes on and pulls Polly away. Mac escapes and runs back to Cable Street.
Peachum arrives to see Mac and finds only Brown. He threatens Brown that he will mess up the
next day’s coronation by injecting his beggars into it.
The Second Threepenny Finale (Peachum, Mrs Peachum and chorus).

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Act III Sc 1  Peachum’s beggars’ kitchen

Peachum makes plans for his gang of professional cripples and beggars to get in there amongst
the horses’ hooves and really foul up the coronation.
Brown arrives and arrests him.
Song: The Insufficiency of Human Endeavour (Peachum).
Peachum tells Brown that unless he is freed he will deploy six hundred cripples to lie down in
front of the royal coach. Brown gives up. Releases Peachum. Peachum says he’d better get after
Mac again.

Act III Sc 2  The prison

Mac is back in jail.

Song: Solomon’s Song (Jenny).
He has been betrayed once again. He is to be hanged. He tries to bribe his way out.
Song: Call from the grave (Mac).
All his old friends come to visit him. The coronation bells ring.
Song: Epitaph (Mac).
Song: Walk to the gallows (Peachum).
Third Threepenny Finale: The king’s messenger arrives to say that a happy ending to the
opera is preferred and Mac is pardoned. The opera ends with a hymn, led by Peachum, which
solemnly declares that criminality should not be prosecuted. Life itself is punishment enough.

LOOK OUT FOR

MINUTES FROM THE START
Prologue
0**
3: Und der Haifisch***
The overture0 has two halves: the first with a bang bang (four times) figure which seems to
be saying Wake up! Wake up! Listen to our show! and the second a really nice Bach-like bundle
of fugality. The subject is given out by an alto sax, taken up by a trumpet and passed on to a
clarinet.
    The ballad of Mac the Knife.3 In many ways the motto song of the 1930s, and certainly one
of the landmark tunes of the century. The orchestration of the later verses, especially when the
piano comes in, is an added bonus.

Act I Sc 1
MINUTES FROM THE START
6: Wach auf**
7: Anstatt dass*
Peachum’s hymn.6 It is of course, as always with Brecht/Weill, the words and music together
that make this wicked little item such a winner, the scurrilous words being set to a cod Lutheran
chant suitable to accompany the holiest of thoughts.

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    The ‘You can’t stop them’ song.7 Polly is out on the tiles. They all do it sings Peachum, with a
trumpet and then a sax giving him a run for his money.
    The Moon over Soho sings Mrs Peachum, romantically, to a persistent vamp accompaniment.

Act I Sc 2
MINUTES FROM THE START
10: Meine Herren*
14: John war darunter*
17: Siehst du den Mond über Soho?*
The Ballad of Pirate Jenny.10 The words, the tune and the rhythm when put together contribute
about equally to make what is really nothing into a ballad that catches the attention — for a
while (for it does go on a bit).
The Cannon Song.14 By no means politically correct but with loads of zing and the best refrain-
tune in the opera, a pounding piano and incidental curlicues from the trumpet.
    The Love Song.17 Begins as speech over music but when they sing together it is one of the
sweeter of Weill’s bitter-sweet pieces. The words, of course, take the piss out of any idea that
the sentiment in the music is real.

Act I Sc 3
MINUTES FROM THE START
19: Einst glaubte ich*
24: Was ich möchte*
The Barbara Song.19 The chirpy chorus is not a million miles away from Mac the Knife nor,
for that matter, the Volga Boat Song.
    The First Threepenny Finale.24 A pert opening from Polly — why the hell shouldn’t I be
allowed to have a man? Peachum comes the heavy: Mrs Peachum is melodious and motherly.
Peachum gets faster and faster and eventually all three singing together tend to agree that
everyone is a punk at heart.

Act II Sc 1
MINUTES FROM THE START
0: Ach Mac*
1: Hübsch als es währte**
3: Da ist nun einer schon**
Look out especially for the ridiculously beautiful accompaniment0 to the melodrame of Polly
parting with Mac and his amazingly beautiful farewell flourish. It could be Gounod on a good
day. Followed by Polly’s sad little song — he’ll never come back.1
    The Ballad of Sexual Obsession. Mrs Peachum’s big moment.3 She tells us what gentlemen
do at night. She isn’t coming the acid, she is reporting. It is so cool she might be reading a short
address to the Law Society. A doleful tenor sax doubles the voice part. This is one that can
haunt the ear for weeks.

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Act II Sc 2
MINUTES FROM THE START
6: In einer Zeit*
The Ballad of Immoral Earnings.6 Tender memories of life in a whorehouse. It taps away
in tango rhythm in typical Weill style but it’s not one of his specials. Just good. Three verses,
one each and one together. A nice instrumental tailpiece (first time two saxes: next time two
Hawaiian guitars!).
    (Note: sometimes Pirate Jenny pops up again here because in the early days Lotte Lenya
grabbed the number away from a less formidable Polly and made it her own. It should either
be Polly’s or Jenny’s; to play it twice must be wrong and it is more of a Polly song than a Jenny
song because the singer is clearly a skivvy in a hotel and not a whore.)

Act II Sc 3
MINUTES FROM THE START
15: Ihr Herrn, urteilt jetz selbst*
18: Komm heraus*
20: Eifersucht. Wut.*
24: Ihr Herrn, die ihr uns lehrt**
The Ballad of Good Living. A cheery piece15 going along at a comfortable jog-trot with a more
tuneful tune than most with trumpet and sax fooling around the main vocal line pretty freely.
    The Jealousy Duet.18 Bitchy one-liners — they work well enough on the stage but would
become tiresome played back in the home but for the sweet joint refrain ‘He loves me and me
alone’.
    Lucy’s Aria.20 Nearly a grand opera item but not an aria, more arioso with patches spoken
(parlando). But with a truly grand operatic climax — and the orchestra jack themselves up to
give very high-class support; the descending figures that keep coming in the intro and then
throughout could have been written by Gluck.
    The Second Threepenny Finale.24 It’s food that makes the world go round. The first half is
a heavy meal, slow and lumpy. The answer to the question asked from off-stage livens things
up — and it has a good tune too. We finish operatically, rather dim chorus and all.

Act III Sc 1
MINUTES FROM THE START
0: Der Mensch lebt durch den Kopf**
Ballad of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavour.0 Peachum explains that man just isn’t
clever enough to cope with life in the neatest, smartest and funniest number in the piece. The
patter-like speech is accompanied by the orchestra pretty well in ensemble. For once the saxes
and trumpets don’t stray around doing their own thing.

Act III Sc 2
MINUTES FROM THE START
2: Ihr saht den weisen Salomon*
7: Ihr Menschenbrüder*
10*

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12: Horch, wer kommt?*

13: Anlässlich ihrer Krönung*
14: Gerettet, Gerettet!*
16: Darum bleibt alle stehen*
17: Verfolgt das Unrecht*
Solomon’s Song.2 This dreary number is only worth looking out for because of its strange
accordion accompaniment. Jenny’s singing line is doubled an octave lower and the usual
accordion cha-chas are chucked in above.
     After his hectic Call from the grave Mac dives into another nearly operatic number — Epitaph.7
He asks a wide variety of persons to forgive his sins, sardonically one hopes, for it would be a
shame if he had lost his bottle at this stage in the game. He starts the ballad with the lightest of
wind accompaniments over a pizzicato string bass. But it builds to a full chorus of support and
in the last verse dies away again as Mac makes a quiet and sincere plea for the police to have
their faces bashed in.
    Third Threepenny Finale.10
    1. After the news from Peachum that we are not to have a hanging after all but a happy
ending, we are into a chorus of welcome to the king’s messenger.12 This is thin and repetitious
and needs a lot of stage business to help it get by. Nice part for the piano.
    2. A cod grand opera recitatif from the messenger.13 Rather good. Mac is ennobled.
    3. Mac responds in true operatic style.14 He always knew things would turn out well in the
end. We get into a running lyrical line. Polly chucks in her pennyworth.
    4. A march,16 not, after all, to the gallows. The16 Peachums make their statements, Mrs
simply saying well isn’t that nice, but Peachum himself preaching a little sermon on the text
that all crime should be spared from prosecution.
    5. A hymn with overtones and echoes of the real old Lutheran stuff.17 Injustice should never
be pursued and soon it’s going to be winter and very cold and we are going to die. Holy sounds
(harmonium and all).

NOTES
The Threepenny Opera     Weill’s second successful collaboration with Brecht. Many
earlier musical ballets, plays, quasi-operas etc., some
performed, some not, many lost.
First night Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin, 31 August 1928
Reception Ecstatic
Libretto Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann
Source Frederick Austin’s revival of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera
at the Lyric, Hammersmith in 1920. Song material from
François Villon, Rudyard Kipling and others

NEWS AND GOSSIP

Everyone in the musical world was talking about the phenomenal success of Frederick Austin’s
Beggar’s Opera. Brecht decided that after treatment the piece would be just right for the cabaret/

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theatre world of Berlin. He translated it. Then he did more — he Berlinized it. He got an
impresario to agree to put it on, sent a fax to Weill, his team-mate on Mahagonny which had
only just opened and eight months later after chaotic rehearsals The Threepenny Opera hit the
stage. There are recordings still available of the original cast and we can therefore tell that the
original show was quite unlike the show we see today. Here are some of the reasons:
1. Weill after the first run re-orchestrated it from a seven-piece jazz combo to a pit band of
twenty-three.
2. The parts were played by actors who could sing (rather as Rex Harrison ‘sang’ in My Fair
Lady but without his charm and none of them quite so tone-deaf).
3. Brecht revised the whole thing in 1931 to keep pace with his changes in ideology (he was
of course a Marxist). This is the version used now.
4. Lotte Lenya (Weill’s wife) outlived him by some thirty years and used her position as
owner of the rights to create all manner of mythology about how the piece had been done and
(more difficult to contest) how the master had wanted the piece to be done. She would only
license performances that reflected her enormously egotistical views.
The first production of The Threepenny Opera touched a spot that galvanized the whole
German nervous system, rather as did Hitler in a bigger way a year or two later. For two years
Threepenny Opera fever had Germany rolling about in ecstasy. And it spread. By 1933, 133
separate productions had been licensed. Pabst made a famous feature film. There were eight
separate English translations/versions. The show ran for 2611 nights in New York, at that time
the longest running musical in history. But the fever cooled and by the end of World War II
most people could take it or leave it. Today The Threepenny Opera is not in the regular opera
repertory. It crops up from time to time in opera festivals and more often in the legitimate
theatre, which is where it really belongs.

COMMENT
The Threepenny Opera owes more to Brecht than to Weill. Brecht gave it that whiff from the
sewers that was the popular smell for all art in Berlin and in Vienna at that time. His lyrics
exploit the mood of despair brilliantly. He does not invert moral values quite so neatly as does
Gay in the original Beggar’s Opera and indeed, as his Communist friends told him, it is scarcely
a social satire at all. In The Threepenny Opera it is not the rich, the powerful or the pompous who
are pilloried. All mankind is in a pigsty where all pigs are equal and struggling not to drown in
their own pigshit. The Brecht text is only just saved from being boringly depressing by his wit,
which is deadly.
Weill, on the other hand, wrote one top-class tune (Mac the Knife) and a lot of pretty good
cabaret numbers. Pretty good, that is, if you take each one on its merits, not so good if you
listen to them head to tail on a CD, much better when sandwiched between bouts of spoken
dialogue as they are on stage. The tunes themselves do not have the direct appeal of the ballads
of Tin Pan Alley nor of the American musical of the same period and their orchestrations are
often a bit dreary. Weill has two aggravating habits, one to keep doubling the vocal part with
an orchestral line an octave lower, the other to chuck in dozens of chirpy little interjections
from the trumpet and sax soloists which are all predictable and repetitive. He was in fact a
computer composer before computers were invented. Today if you gave your Omaha automatic
harmonium a Weill stop you could apply the Threepenny Opera sound to almost any piece of
music.

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Weill was a passionate anti-Wagnerian and had picked up ideas about the future of opera
from his tutor Busoni and from a study of Schoenberg’s theories. There is no doubt that he and
Brecht took opera back into the theatre and took it back to the people (their kind of people), but
they also took it back over a hundred years to the old Singspiel form that had been the bugaboo
of German opera since it was imposed by the decree of the old chauvinist Emperor Joseph II.
The ballads stop the action dead. The plot moves not in recitatif but in speech. There are few
ensembles and the choruses are dire. All the work of Mozart, Verdi and Wagner in putting
music and drama together into that glorious thing opera goes for nothing.
The best way to enjoy The Threepenny Opera is to forget all the political and cultural luggage
that Brecht, Weill, Lenya and their followers tried to pile into the old thing and to see it as
an extended cabaret act. Strangely enough, if taken at its face value, it has a naivety and an
innocence that is rather touching. It is like schoolboys talking dirty to shock their parents. But
the schoolboys are clever, funny and original and they still have the power to shock, if only
just. Beta.

Tito, La Clemenza di see Clemenza di Tito, La

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