PAUME aims to connect avantagarde art, the urban and its context. In that, we are not alone. Perhaps one of the best attempts of that connection can be attributed to the oeuvre of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Firmly rooted in the city, they wrote their plays and songs about the gritty life of urban citizens. The two most famous plays are Mahagonny (first a ‘songspiel’, later an opera) and the Dreigroschenoper or Threepenny Opera, both early critical sonic and visual treatments of the urban.
Let’s start with Mahagonny. Originally intended as a songspiel (and performed as such), it eventually evolved in an opera or an anti-opera, because the authors aimed to step away from the corny antics of the operas of those days. The anti-opera, written between 1927 and 1929, describes how a gang, on the run for the police, have escaped and decide they are so far outside the civilized world they might as well start a city from scratch on that spot. The city, Mahagonny, is meant to be a pleasure city, a place where people would be free of care and sorrow. The plan works for a while but as the story unfolds it becomes increasingly clear that careless pleasure is an impossibility and the end of the opera suggests that the city burns down, after one of the main characters is hanged.
There are many themes in this opera and the city serves as the spot that anchors the kaleidoscope of themes. There are whores, gamblers, some sort of authority made up by ex-criminals, looming natural disasters and more. The city itself may serve as a symbol of capitalism and its discontents. Both Weill and Brecht set out to present an opera that made people re-think their ideas about society. Although a German opera, it has nothing of the grandiose (sometimes grotesque) characteristics of the traditional opera. Instead it employs a range of tools to create a confusing effect: the traditional themes are turned upside down (a disaster does not happen, essentially rewarding people for their behavior; love is nothing romantic but something for sale, and so on), the music mirrors the atmosphere of the text (when the singers exclaim their happiness, they do so in a moody song) and the music is often dissonant whilst still suggesting more common styles such as jazz. In fact, it is Weill’s use of dissonant music that made me first realize the true potential of music as a descriptor.
The abundance of themes, the musical treatment and the focus on the city as a playground for humanity all mean that Weill and Brecht made exactly what we need to understand the urban in the past and today. Or, to put it more precise: they have created a prototype of music as an urban exploration. There are many versions available on CD and LP but very few integral versions, let alone versions of the recordings of those days. If you come across one: grab it! More popular renditions of the songs are still around – ranging from The Doors to the Young Gods. They are interesting but less interesting than the originals.
The Zuidelijk Toneel recently performed the Mahagonny songspiel, followed by a contemporary piece written and directed by Matthijs Rümke with contributions by Tom de Ket. The Song of [insert name of host city here] is a 201o critical review of the current human condition in the city. It is, in short, what Brecht could have written should he live today. There is no use in repeating the storyline here. It left the audience gasping for breath and reconsidering the way we deal with each other in an ever-accelerating society. Interesting for me (as a scholar studying public decision making) was the director’s take on the way we as a society try to outsource our duties in an attempt to relieve our burden but effectively creating a much bigger burden in return. That is pretty much what Brecht told us almost 100 years ago: there is no utopia because we can never separate ourselves from our sins and paradoxes. Well, thank you so much. A reality call that hits straight in our faces, but a very welcome one. The Zuidelijk Toneel finished their tour so we will have to wait patiently if we want to see another Mahagonny or Het Lied van de Stad.
Luckily, the Dreigroschenoper or Threepenny Opera can be witnessed live if you happen to be somewhere in The Netherlands. Het Nationale Toneel is currently touring with an integral performance of the Threepenny Opera (see our agenda for the dates in a town near you). Based on the 1728 so-called Beggar’s Opera, this opera (like Mahagonny more an anti-opera than an opera in the puritanical sense of the word) is a criticism of capitalism, as was a common theme in their work. In this case, the gritty streets of London’s underworld served as a metaphor for the way capitalism worked and perhaps still works. In any case, it is highly appropriate to blow the dust of this marvelous piece at this particular time, when debates about capitalism (and the subsequent destruction of a considerable part of the financial markets) are back again. Try to watch it if you have a chance.
(Originally published in several discrete parts at Lasse’s weblog)
