The Three-Penny Opera [K Weill]

The Threepenny Opera proclaims itself «an opera for beggars,» and it was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of two young German artists, composer Kurt Weill and poet-playwright Bert Brecht. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny’s source, The Beggar’s Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel’s operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue following the overture, a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, «Mack the Knife.» The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria’s coronation.

Synopsis

•  Prologue

After the overture, the Street Singer comes onstage with a barrel organ and sings of the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, Mack the Knife («Ballad of Mack the Knife«). The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria’s coronation.

• Act 1

Act I begins in the shop of Jonathan Peachum («Morning Anthem«), who controls London’s beggars, equipping and training them in return for a cut of their «earnings.» He enrolls a new beggar with the help of his wife, after which they notice that their grown daughter Polly did not come home the previous night («Instead Of Song«). The scene shifts to an empty stable where Macheath is about to marry Polly, as soon as his gang has stolen and brought all the necessary food and furnishings («Wedding Song«). No vows are exchanged, but Polly is satisfied, and everyone sits down to a banquet. Since none of the gang members can provide fitting entertainment, Polly does it herself («Pirate Jenny«). The gang gets nervous when Chief of Police Tiger Brown arrives, but Brown turns out to be an old army buddy of Mack’s («Army Song«) who has prevented him from being arrested all these years. Everyone else exits and Mack and Polly celebrate their love («Love Song«). Then Polly returns home and defiantly announces her marriage, as her parents urge her to get a divorce and Mrs. Peachum resolves to bribe Mack’s favorite prostitutes («Ballad of Dependency«). Polly reveals Mack’s ties to Brown, which gives Mr. and Mrs. Peachum an idea about how to snare Mack, and the trio meditates on the world’s corruption («The World Is Mean«).

• Act 2

Polly tells Mack that her father will have him arrested. He makes arrangements to leave London, explaining his bandit «business» to Polly so she can manage it in his absence, and he departs («Melodrama» and «Polly’s Song«). Polly takes over the gang decisively as Mrs. Peachum bribes Jenny, Mack’s old lover, to turn him in («Ballad of Dependency» reprise). On the way out of London, Mack stops at his favorite brothel to visit Jenny («Tango Ballad«). Brown arrives and apologetically arrests Mack, who goes to jail. He bribes the guard to remove his handcuffs («Ballad of the Easy Life«); then his girlfriend, Lucy–Brown’s daughter–arrives and declares her love («Barbara Song«). Polly arrives, and she and Lucy quarrel («Jealousy Duet«). After Polly leaves, Lucy engineers Mack’s escape. When Mr. Peachum finds out, he threatens Brown and forces him to send the police after Mack. The action stops for another meditation on the unpleasant human condition («How to Survive«).

•  Act 3

Jenny comes to the Peachums’ shop to demand her bribe money, which Mrs. Peachum refuses to pay. Jenny reveals that Mack is at Suky Tawdry’s house. When Brown arrives, determined to arrest Peachum and the beggars, he is horrified to learn that the beggars are already in position and only Mr. Peachum can stop them («Useless Song«). To placate Peachum, Brown’s only option is to arrest Mack and have him executed. Jenny mourns Mack’s plight («Solomon Song«). In the next scene, Mack is back in jail («Call from the Grave«). He begs the gang to raise a sufficient bribe, but they cannot («Call from the Grave» part 2). A parade of visitors–Brown, Jenny, Peachum, and Polly–enters as Mack prepares to die («Death Message«). Then a sudden reversal: A messenger on horseback arrives to announce that Macheath has been pardoned by the Queen and granted a castle and pension («The Mounted Messenger«). The Street Singer delivers the coda («Ballad of Mack the Knife» reprise).

SONGS  [click for lyrics]

♦→ Ballad of Mack the Knife  ⇔  Ella Fitzgerald ←

↓  Dee Dee Bridgewater & Ray Brown Trio 

♦→Pirate Jenny

♦  Ballad of Sexual Dependency ↓ [Marianne Faithfull]

Now there’s a man, the living tool of Satan
He charges forth while others are debating
Conniving, cocky knave with all the trimmings
I know one thing will trim him down — women.
In women he meets deep authority,
In them he feels his old dependency.

He sniggers at the Good Book, mocks the priss and prim,
Does anything for pay if it will pay
And since he knows what ladies do to him
He thrusts them well out of his way.
All through the day he swears
He’s self denying, then dusk descends
And once again he’s lying.

They’re all the same in meeting love’s confusion
Poor noble souls get blotted in illusion
The one who swore he would escape the clinches
Who is it that entangles him, wenches
It fain resists their lush authority
Before him stands his old dependency.

He harked the ten Commandments
Trod the tried and true, would godly be and Golden Rule obey.
For lunch ate frugally, a grape or two,
Survived on one pure thought a day.
He screamed, «I’ve mastered it without half trying»
Appears the moon and once again he’s lying.
Idiots — all of them.

•→ First Threepenny Finale – The World is Mean  [clip]

•→ Ballad of the Easy Life  [clip]

♦  Second Threepenny Finale – How to Survive:  Ballad About What Keeps A Man Alive  

«Denn wovon lebt der Mensch?»  ↓

•  Two covers of Weill & Brecht’s ↓  1928 agitprop socialist anthem :

◊  Tom Waits  ↓

◊  William S. Burroughs  ↓

You gentlemen who think you have a mission to purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position – Then start your preaching, that’s where it begins
You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn, for once, the way the world is run
However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on

So first make sure that those who are now starving

get proper helpings when we all start carving
What keeps mankind alive?What keeps mankind alive?
The fact that millions are daily tortured, stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance in keeping its humanity repressed
And for once you must try not to shriek the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts

•→ Third Threepenny Finale — Mounted Messenger  [clip]

•→ Ballad of Mack the Knife: Reprise  [clip]

¤  BONUS TRACK:  Marianne Faithfull ↓ ‘Bilbao Song’

Bill’s be all in Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao,
Was the most fantastic place I’ve ever known.
For just a dollar you’d get all you wanted, all you wanted, all you wanted
Of whatever kind of joy you called your own.
But if you had been around to see the fun
Well I don’t know you might not like for you to see
The stools at the bar were damp with rye
On the dancefloor the grass grew high,
Through the roof the moon was shining green
And the music really gave you some return on what you paid
Hey Joe, play that old song they always played.
That ol’ Bilbao
Down were we used to go
Who remembers the words … It’s so long ago.
I don’t know if it would have brought you joy or grief but
It was fantastic – It was fantastic  – It was fantastic
Beyond belief.

Bill’s be all in Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao,
Came a day the end of May in ’98
Four guys from Bristol came with sacks of coal dust,
Sacks of coal dust, sacks of coal dust
And the time they showed us all was really great.
But if you had been around to see the fun
Well I don’t know you might not like what you’d’ve seen.
The brandy bottles smashing through the air
And the chairs flying everywhere
Through the roof the moon’s still shining green
And those fog eyes all went going crazy with their pistols blazing high,
«Think you can stop ‘em ?  Go ahead and try!»

That ol’ Bilbao – Down where we used to go
That ol’ Bilbao – Casting its golden glow
That ol’ Bilbao moon – Love never laid me low
That ol’ Bilbao – Why does it hurt me so ?
I don’t know if it would have brought you joy or grief but
It was fantastic – It was fantastic  – It was fantastic
Beyond belief.

Bill’s be all in, Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao,
Now they’ve cleaned it up and made it middle class
With potted palms and aspree
Very bourgeois, very bourgeois
Just another place to put your ass,
But if you could come around to see the fun
Well, I don’t know, you might not find it such a strain,
They’ve cleaned up all the pools of broken glass,
On parquet floors you can’t grow grass,
They’ve shut the green moon out because of rain
And the music makes you cringe now when you think of what you paid
Hey Joe, play that ol’ song they always played;
That ol’ Bilbao – Down where we used to go
That ol’ Bilbao – Casting its golden glow
That ol’ Bilbao moon – Love never laid me low
That ol’ Bilbao – Why does it hurt me so ?
I don’t know if it would have brought you joy or grief but
It was fantastic – It was fantastic  – It was fantastic
Beyond belief.

So long ago …