Problem but classic, One third of opera It has been troublesome since its premiere in the theater in 1928. “This is one of the most famous disasters of all time,” director Barrie Kosky told Observer. “Half of the scene was about half an hour before the show. The audience didn’t understand; they didn’t really like it. Everyone thought it would be the biggest failure ever.”
Considered the best opera director of his generation, Kosky brought his 2021 Berliner ensemble to BAM’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, which was presented by BAM for four nights (April 3-6), marking his New York City premiere. The well-reviewed production center centers on the tricky Mackie Messer, the infamous thief and cutthroat, and the theme of the tune Cutting knife, Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra were famous in the 1950s.
based on Beggar’s operaJohn Gay’s 18th century drama, One third of opera Represents the second collaboration between left-wing avant-garde poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht and classically trained composer Kurt Weill. When John Gay’s dramatic work in the 1920s sold houses in London, Brecht’s lover and translator Elisabeth Hauptmann proposed the material for adaptation. The narrative is located in the back alley of London, with a focus on Mackie. When the latter discovered who his new son was, he called on police inspector Tiger Brown, who was convinced to issue an arrest warrant despite being a long-time military mate of Mackie’s. Mackie takes it to the Lamb, leaving Polly to lead the gang, she does it with her prenatal ability.
“It’s cynical, ironic, these guys are charming monsters,” Kosky said with a smile. “Berlin, in his twenties, is a place where only cynical can be done. But despite the nihilism of the drama, Brecht’s humor and Will’s music saved it, which made it human.”
Because corruption, greed and narcissism are never out of date, the show is still important in any era. “The victory of the terrible people is eternal. They all end up getting out of the car. Even McGee – he was sentenced to death, and when the noose was around his neck, there was a deus ex machina. Now, a rider came and told him that the queen had pardoned him and he had been alive.”
Kosky’s method of material is to prohibit anything hitting the German Weimar Republic or Kander and retired musicals, Singing and dancing performance. Brecht played a role primarily towards marginal audiences before that, pulling the material in the direction of social justice. Weill is filled with emotional desolation in the language of Bach and his own legacy as Cantor’s son.
“Firstly, Brecht and Weill were experiencing with theatrical and musical language. There hadn’t been a piece quite like this before. That range between what the text is doing and what the music is doing is what makes it so fantastic. Finding a way in which you can do this tango between the intellectually cerebral satirical sarcasm of Brecht’s text with the beautiful, often melancholic yearning of Kurt Weill’s music,” says Kosky of the production’s main challenge.
Will’s musical language was influenced by the odes of synagogues, coupled with the rhythm of the 20th century metropolis, which was a fusion of ancient and new – some of Will’s hero JS Bach. “He created a unique and revolutionary style of music because he believed not only to incorporate jazz and other instruments and folk music into his music. He turned it into something new.”
Music is not just music One third of opera Revolutionary. The ultra-modern concept of this is a show (at the time) caught the attention of it being a show. “Even if the actor is speaking, he must play the trick in a way that always warns the audience to be playing.”
Kosky reminds his actors that they can always compare the fourth wall to the juggling method. “The challenge is to keep the light. I keep saying to the actors, ‘Just as fast and smart as the characters in Lubitsch movies. Don’t overlay all of this in the sense.”
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Will first put Brecht’s lyrics on the music of the song cycle Mahagoniwritten for the German Music Festival, an annual event held in Baden-Baden. A few months later, Brecht One third of opera. While making the script, Brecht retreated to a villa in southern France along with Weill and his wife Lotte Lenya, Hauptmann and director Erich Engel, but quit in July to take care of the business in Berlin and didn’t return until eleven days before opening. The show took a huge blow throughout Europe, but failed on Broadway in 1933. The revival was not captured in North America until 1954.
“Brecht and Weill, they weren’t friends, they were very good at this stage, but after a few years, they didn’t work with each other,” Kosky performed in the theater that premiered in 1928. “It’s very special. Three-person opera In the theater where Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and others worked. When you work with the Berlin Ensemble, there is a table, his original table was the original table when he started the Berliner ensemble after the war. ”
Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Kosky showed an early tendency to music, playing piano before he was five and adding cello at six. He sang “an obsessed dramatic kid” in the chorus and performed in school drama, although his main mentor was his Hungarian grandmother who brought him to his first opera, and his parents exposed him to various live entertainment, both classical and modern.
“I’m a sponge. I want to be a concert pianist, I want to be a conductor. I directed my first show at school when I was 15 years old.Wozzeck“He said, citing Alban Berg’s opera on madness and murder. After graduating from Melbourne Grammar School, he was a private school for boys, who attended the University of Melbourne, where he mentored Mozart Don Giovanni And Frank Wedekind Lulu drama,,,,, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box.
After establishing an outstanding career in his homeland drama and opera, he became co-director of Schauspielhaus Wien in Vienna and quickly became one of the most important directors in Europe. Kosky was appointed as the artistic director of the prestigious Komische Opera in 2012, and he held a ten-year position and went on to win the 2014 International Opera Awards Best Director Award.
“Some of my friends apologize for not liking opera. Don’t apologize. No one should be forced to go to opera,” said Kosky, who is currently preparing for Wagner’s ring cycle in London. “You go to the opera because I believe it is the highest form of European performing arts that we have created in hundreds of years. When it’s good, it’s out of reach,” he paused, smiling. “When it’s bad, it’s incredible.”
Tickets made by Kosky One third of opera Available through BAM and will be held from April 3 to 6, 2025.
