Volksoper Vienna tickets 31 May 2024 - The Threepenny Opera | GoComGo.com

The Threepenny Opera

Volksoper Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Vienna, Austria
Starts at: 19:00
Acts: 3
Sung in: German
Cast
Creators
Composer: Kurt Weill
Librettist: Bertolt Brecht
Director: Maurice Lenhard
Overview

he Threepenny Opera is the first contribution to the Volksoper Wien's new Manifesto series. Under this title, young as well as experienced theatre-makers are invited to think aloud about the how and why of making music theatre. Each artistic team will leave behind a new production and a manifesto at the end, which we will build on in the future.

Whoever is best at cheating wins: gangster boss Macheath and king of the beggars Peachum (both entrepreneurs!) engage in a sleaze contest of the finest kind. Peachum's daughter Polly, however, does not see herself as investment capital and marries Macheath for love. The whore Jenny takes revenge with her own means. But a world that rewards only the better crooks cannot be a good one. The Threepenny Opera (Dreigroschenoper) mercilessly exposes what the audience does not want to see: that we are all the ones who support this wickedness.

In 1928 it is already cold in the bourgeois world to which The Threepenny Opera wants to show its wickedness unadorned. And isn't it getting colder and colder? Maurice Lenhard and his team present this classic play with music as a struggle for survival in a cold world: in this version, those who do not yet have a thick skin had best wrap themselves up as well as possible against the frost.

History
Premiere of this production: 31 August 1928, Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin

The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, Hauptmann might have contributed to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author. The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world.

Venue Info

Volksoper Vienna - Vienna
Location   Währinger Strasse 78

The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It produces three hundred performances of twenty-five German language productions during an annual season which runs from September through June.

Volksoper Vienna was built in 1898 as the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater (Kaiser's Jubilee Civic Theatre), originally producing only plays. Because of the very brief construction period (10 months) the first director Adam Müller-Gutenbrunn had to start with debts of 160,000 gulden. After this inauspicious startup the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater had to declare bankruptcy five years later in 1903.

On 1 September 1903 Rainer Simons took over the house and renamed it the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater - Volksoper (public opera). His intention was to continue the production of plays but also establish series of opera and operetta. The first Viennese performances of Tosca and Salome were given at the Volksoper in 1907 and 1910 respectively. World-famous singers such as Maria Jeritza, Leo Slezak and Richard Tauber appeared there; the conductor Alexander Zemlinsky became the first bandmaster in 1906.

In the years up to and through the First World War the Volksoper attained a position as Vienna's second prestige opera house. In 1919, Felix Weingartner became Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. He was followed as Director by Hugo Gruder-Guntram. After 1929, it focused on light opera, and under Gruder-Guntram undertook a number of summer tours to Abbazia in 1935, Cairo and Alexandria in 1937 and throughout Italy in 1938, with guest appearances from Richard Tauber. After the Second World War, the Vienna Volksoper became the alternative venue to the devastated Vienna State Opera. In 1955 the Volksoper returned to its former role of presenting opera, operetta, and musicals.

From September 1991 to June 1996 the Vienna Volksoper was under a collective leadership with the Vienna State Opera. In 1999 the Volksoper became a 100% subsidiary of the Bundestheater-Holding. Since 1 September 2007 Robert Meyer has headed the Volksoper as artistic director together with the business manager Christoph Ladstätter. Each season includes about 25 productions, a total of approximately 300 performances—a performance almost every day. In addition to opera, operetta, musicals and ballet, there are special performances and children's programs.

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Vienna, Austria
Starts at: 19:00
Acts: 3
Sung in: German
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