Music & Theater in Berlin prior to 1919
Music and theater are two vehicles for cultural expression throughout our world. Today’s cultural, social and public media reach the German population instantaneously in much the way it reaches other technologically advanced countries, via several channels. Art and music are available, as well as news and other social information through television and the internet, and it reaches a large cross-section of the population because tvs, radio and personal computers have become standard throughout the twenty-first century German culture.
This was not the case of music, news and art in the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1933. The main source for public media was radio, and the airwaves were controlled by a small few. There were vastly fewer outlets for culture. Because news and information, art, theater and music were all streamlined threw a smaller number of outlets, influences upon the German volk had fewer and more polarizing political overtones. Public attitudes were more easily manipulated by those who controlled the airwaves and stages, whether they be the up-and-coming National Socialists, the Social Democrats or the Marxist Communists.
Late Weimar/early Third Reich television set (1934-35 Telefunken FE-III)
Television was exclusive technology, strictly afforded by the only the bourgeois. Some of the proletariat (so named by Karl Marx in Communist Manifesto) may have been fortunate enough to have home radios and record players or disposable funds to afford the latest music releases on “78” records. However, as the National Socialist party gained more power in the early 1930s, even this personal privilege could be revoked and radios began to be confiscated for party-related reasons.
In Germany, Berlin was the center of culture and the arts. German artists of post-great war Weimar Republic gathered here to share ideas and reshape conceptual interpretations of all forms of art. At this time, theater and music were both main sources for offering this new era of art to the public. Amidst this avante-garde era, the Theatre am SchiffBauerdamm would become synonymous with the name Bertolt Brecht and his play, ‘Die Dreigroschenoper.‘ The 1928 debut of Brecht’s play, The Threepenny Opera ii, would establish the foundation of Brecht’s style called ‘epic theater.’iii
Brecht was aiming for this new non-Aristotelian style. iv “Epic theatre – The major premise of that is, of course, that one wants to militate against what Brecht saw as ‘culinary theater.’ It’s this bourgeois theater that essentially appealed to self-satisfied citizens and really did nothing but, in a sense, replicate the gabrian ideology and the class interests that went with it.” Brecht used this term to define his newer form of theater which took a part the pieces of “Aristotelian theatre” and modernizing it.v
Die Dreigroschenoper, the 1928 theatrical release
Original German poster from Berlin's Theater am SchiffBauerdamm, 1928
‘Die Dreigroschenoper’ or ‘The Threepenny Opera’ debuted on 31 August 1928.vi It opened at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. The 1928 play is a reworking of the original English Eighteenth-century play, The Beggar’s Opera written by John Gay. Brecht’s assistant had heard of the English play, thought it was something Brecht would be interested in and brought it to his attention. He found resonance in its potential political themes so she translated The Beggar’s Opera into German for him. With newly discovered Marxist theory in mind, Brecht then rewrote the play, creating what was to become the “the hit if the season.”vii
The new German title was a reference to the pittance of money with which the working class could spend to see theatrical performances. This epic theater style was performed in the round, reminiscent of Shaespeare’s Globe Theatre so its style too aimed at its working class audience. The name references not only the price of admission, thus the economic status of the age, but is also aludes to the political issues of capitalism and the working class on which the play itself is based.
The following is a brief synopsis of the German opera from Suite 101 viii ix
Prologue.
The street singer introduces the play with the “Ballad of Mac the Knife.”Act I. At the Peachum’s Beggars’ Shop and an Empty Stable
At the Peachum’s beggars’ shop, Mr and Mrs Peachum head a gang of beggars and petty criminals. Polly Peachum does not come home, having secretly married Mac the Knife. Polly’s parents disapprove of their relationship and want the sheriff to arrest Mac.
In an empty stable, the Polly and Mac are toasted by members of Mac’s gang. They reminisce their good old times and their buddies who went into the army.
Back to Peachum’s beggars’ shop, Polly recounts all the nice men she turned down, that she accepted Mac because he is not nice.
Act II. The Empty Stable, a Whorehouse, and the Jail Cell in the Old Bailey
At the empty stable, Mac realizes he and Polly are never going to be together. While Polly laments Mac’s flight from the law, Mac takes up a prostitute and a former lover, Jenny, who is actually bribed by Mrs Peachum to betray Mac to the police.
At the whorehouse, Jenny cleans the glasses and makes the beds in the house of prostitution. With Mac now, they fondly remember the six months when they kept house. She then turns him in to the police.
In jail, Mac decides that only the rich live pleasantly. Polly and Mac’s new girlfriend, Lucy, the sheriff’s daughter, fight over Mac.
Act III. Peachum’s Beggars’ Shop and the Jail Cell in the Old Bailey
Back to Peachum’s Beggars’ Shop, Mr. Peachum insists and threatens the sheriff, that Mac must be arrested, else the beggars and criminals will upset the coronation. Mac is returned to court, condemned to death.
Preparing for the gallows, Mac calls on his friends to save him, then forgives them for not doing so. As Mac is being led to the gallows, Mr Peachum informs the audience that since this is an opera, humanity will prevail over justice. In view of the Queen’s coronation, the sheriff pronounces Mac free, instead, bestows a peerage on him. All propose that injustice be spared from persecution. The street singer reflects how the poor are generally forgotten.
The Politics of Bertolt Brecht, the Play-write and Screenwriter
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it” ~ Bertolt Brecht x
A young bohemian Bertolt Brecht
“Though Brecht was never a member of the [Communist] Party, it was clear that, from the age of about thirty, he was a dissident but committed Marxist.” xi Brecht never claimed any official political leaning, though his earlier works are clearly anti-capitalist. Throughout his life, Brecht was intentionally ambiguous about his politics. By that same token, in his plays and poems, Brecht chose not to work out major issues he had highlighted but rather wanted the issues themselves to be the spotlight of the drama. “For the modern Marxist, philosophy could not be simply a question of cooking up theories about a fixed object and an unchanging world. On the contrary, the ideas had to be able to intervene and participate in the reality (the fragmented, collectivist late capitalist reality), just as the reality intervenes in the ideas. [Brecht is quoted as saying] “I wanted to take the principle that it was not just a matter of interpreting the world but of changing it, and apply that to the theatre.” (Brecht on Theatre, p. 248.) Brecht was working off the famous Marxist phrase, “The philosophers so far have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it.”xii
The Popularity Kurt Weill’s Musical Score
Score by Kurt Weill
Ironically, while Brecht attempted to make a social commentary on the evils of capitalism, Weill’s musical score became an instantaneous success across Germany. Its jazzy tunes and biting satire were fuel enough the make it catch like wildfire among the jazz fans of the day. Though there is little time here to explore the brilliance of all his songs and lyrics from the original score, no commentary on “Die Dreigroschenoper’” would be complete without at least a mention of the play’s most lasting gem, Kurt Weill’s jazz hit, “Mack the Knife.”
Mack the Knife
The character Mackie Messe is the anti-protagonist of the play and only one of the many colorful performances of Brecht’s original play. However, Weill’s original score did not include this popular jazz hit until only a few days before opening night. The actor performing Mackie Messe refused to go on unless his character received an appropriate introduction for his character. It was in haste that the lyrics to the introductory song describing Mackie’s despicable crimes was penned.
A 1925 advert for a jazz performance
“With the boulevardier bravado of its lyrics by Brecht, its ironically sentimental melody, and its barroom accompaniment by Weill, Mackie Messer is the embodiment of the sophisticated sleaziness of Berlin after the war and before the Nazis.”xiii
Die Moritat von Mackie Messer aus der Dreigroschenoper (9 of the original 11 verses)xiv
Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne |Though the shark’s teeth may be lethal
Und die trägt er im Gesicht |Still you see them white and red
Und Macheath, der hat ein Messer |But you won’t see Mackie’s flick knife
Doch das Messer sieht man nicht |Cause he slashed you and you’re dead xvAch, es sind des Haifischs Flossen |
Rot, wenn dieser Blut vergießt! |
Mackie Messer trägt ‘nen Handschuh |
Darauf man keine Untat liest |An ‘nem schönen blauen Sontag |
Liegt ein toter Mann am Strand |
Und ein Mensch geht um die Ecke |
Den man Mackie Messer nennt |Und schmul Meier bleibt verschwunden |
Und so mancher reiche Mann |
Und sein Geld hat Mackie Messer |
Dem man nichts beweisen kann |Jenny Towler ward gefunden |
mit ‘nem Messer in der Brust |
Und am Kai geht Mackie Messer |
Der von allem nichts gewußt |Und das große Feuer in Soho |
Sieben Kinder und ein Greis |
In der Menge Mackie Messer, den |
Man nichts fragt und der nichts weiß |Und die minderjährige Witwe |
Deren Namen jeder weiß |
Wachte auf und war geschändet |
Mackie, welches war dein Preis |Und die Fische, sie verschwinden |There are some who are in darkness
Doch zum Kummer des Gerichts |And the others are in light
Man zitiert am End den Haifisch |And you see the ones in brightness
Doch der Haifisch weiß von nichts |Those in darkness drop from sightUnd er kann sich nicht erinnern |
Und man kann nicht an ihn ran |
Denn ein Haifisch ist kein Haifisch |
Wenn man nicht beweisen kann |
Original Score of ‘Die Moritat von Mackie Messer’ from the ‘Threepenny opera’ sung by Bertolt Brecht:
The song “Mack the Knife” has been popularized by dozens of singers across the decades including: xvi
Bertolt Brecht (listen at the link above) (1928), Frank Sinatra, Dick Hyman (1956), Richard Hayman and Jan August (1956), Lawrence Welk (1956), Louis Armstrong (1956), Billy Vaughn (1956), Bobby Darin(1959), Ella Fitzgerald (1960), Robbie Williams & Michael Buble.
Louis Armstrong, 1956, at London’s Empress Hall:
Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal writes:
“Too often jazz is written about as if it exists in a cultural vacuum. It is, I believe, worth knowing that Philip Larkin praised Louis Armstrong as “an artist of Flaubertian purity…more important than Picasso,” just as it is more than merely interesting to know that Armstrong was listening to and collecting opera recordings as a young man in New Orleans: “I had Caruso…Galli-Curci, Tetrazzini–they were all my favorites. Then there was the Irish tenor, McCormack–beautiful phrasing.””xvii
Robbie Williams sings ‘Mack the Knife”:
The Nero film release of ‘The Threepenny Opera’
The 1931 Nero film release of 3Groschen-oper
In 1931, Brecht’s play was made into a movie, the same year “M” was released. The film version of The Threepenny Opera was directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.xviii However, the script did not strictly follow the original play nor did it follow Brecht’s adaptation for the film. This drastic alteration was done without Brecht’s permission or approval, and thus began the long lawsuit against Nero. The court battle that lasted several years, but eventually Brecht lost the fight since the contract he signed did not reference changes to his adaptation but rather made references to the original script from his play.
“We must bear in mind the fact that film and cinema had a particular resonance in the cultural and intellectual wrangles of German society at this time [1930-1931]. It was felt that the mass distribution of film gave it a far greater impact on public opinion than could be achieved by books or plays and that films and the controversies they might provoke were of major political significance (Brachvogel).”xix
Even though it did not stay true to the original script, the film has been counted among the top ten best films of all time.xx The film has been added to the elite list of Criterion Films made available on DVD in 2007.
VERBODEN
Nazi Response to Popular Music & Theater
In 1933, The National Socialist Party banned this film along with its play-write, Brecht. Having seen the power of popularity in theater, film and music, the Reich-stag waisted no time in snuffing out the dissenting voices of would-be Marxist Communist artists and their followers.
Jazz as a medium became an endangered art form around this time. With limited space here, one can only say that the Nazis were serious about crushing anything like this kind of music that loosened the will and caused such disharmony in the German person. Look closely at this 1944 Nazi article about Benny Goodman entitled, “The Rat-catcher of New York.”
The Long Exile
It is interesting to note that Brecht, who fled from Nazi Germany the night after the Reich-stag Fire, was constantly relocating during WWII, from Zurich, to Denmark. From the Danish island of Fyn to Helsinki, where he waits for visas that will allow him and his family to go to America. Finally in 1940, traveling from Helsinki via Leningrad, Moscow and Vladivostok, he and his family reach Santa Monica, California in America. It was in California where he finished writing The Caucasian Chalk Circle.” (Princeton Theological Seminary will be presenting this play in the Spring of 2010.)
Not surprisingly, in 1947, he is brought before the “House Committee on Un-American Activities” for his communist leanings. Following this summons, he and his wife return to Europe and live is Zurich, Switzerland. That same year, Germany is divided into two zones, Soviet and Western. By 1949, Brecht was again living in Berlin.xxi The once all-powerful Nazi party whose totalitarian hold on German culture had banned artists like Brecht and his plays had lost the second World War. It was the work of artists such as Brecht who were to leave a lasting impression on the historical culture of our world, rather than the National Socialists who had tried to eradicate his kind.
DVD Cover Design, 2007
Criterion Collection release in 2007
Synopsis: “The sly melodies of composer Kurt Weill and the daring of dramatist Bertolt Brecht come together on-screen under the direction of German auteur G. W. Pabst (Pandora’s Box) in this classic adaptation of the Weimar-era theatrical sensation. Set in the impoverished back alleys of Victorian London, The Threepenny Opera follows underworld antihero Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) as he tries to woo Polly Peachum and elude the authorities. With its palpable evocation of corruption and dread, set to Weill’s irresistible score, The Threepenny Opera remains a benchmark of early sound cinema. It is presented here in both its celebrated German and rare French versions.”
Die Dreigroschenoper / The Threepenny Opera (1931): The Movie in Eleven Parts
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2)
3)
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11)
Post-war Commentaries
A brief clip from the 2007 Criterion Collection DVD shows a moving commentary by Frits Raps and Ernst Busch as they introduce the film’s 1956 East German rerelease. The actorsRasp, who played Peachum, and Busch, the street singer in the original film version of The Threepenny Opera (released 1931, Nero) are shown here discussing the fiery politics behind the film. Seventeen years after its debut and eleven years after the end of World War II, these men offer this insight into the film’s cultural impact and upon Brecht’s original satirical intentions.
Though Hitler’s Nazis had totalitarian control over Germany in 1931 and meant to crush art for art’s sake, their efforts were for not. Their riggidity lost out to the lasting quality of art to speak to the human heart.
Transcript:1956 Commentary by Fritz Rasp (Peachum) & Ernst Busch (Street Singer) xxii :
“Actors Fritz Rasp and Ernst Busch, who play Peachum and the street singer in The Three Opera, filmed this introduction to the film in 1956, for its East German rerelease.” Here we have the lead actors Fritz Rasp and Ernst Busch, with well-known critic Herbert Ihering.:
Rasp: “Well Busch, what do you think of our old film?”
Busch: “It was made 17 years ago. But film years count not just double but threefold. Right Ihering?”
Ihering: “I remember that our friend Brecht wasn’t happy with it. He’d envisioned a more biting satire.”
Rasp: “Still, it won a prize in 1932 as one of the best ten films in the world.”
Ihering: “We still counted for something then.”
Rasp: “That’s why the Nazis banned it in 1933.”
Ihering: “They banned both the film and Brecht.”
Busch: “Do you know the original ending?
Go fight the real robbers of this world
Make haste to strike them down and bring them low
It’s they who’ve brought about this cold and darkness
On their account this world is racked with woe.”
Deutschland stamp of Brecht's profile
Links to further information on this topic
“About last night,” Musical commentary blogsite by Terry Teachout:
Early Radio History: Radio During World War One (1914-1919).
Early Radio History: Expanded Audion and Vacuum-tube Development (1917-1924).
Encyclopaedia Britannica: The Influence of Brecht.
Encyclopaedia Britannica: epic theater.
“The Existential Cowboy blog,” sociopolitical blogsite by Len Hart. “Brecht: Truth as Weapon”
NSW HSC online: Studies in Drama & Theater: Brecht
Return2Style: Jazz in Germany 1919 -1945
Suite 101: Kurt Weill The Three Penny Opera: Plot Synopsis and Character Description of Die Dreigroschenoper
TV History website
The Lotte Lenya Documentary on youtube
Bibliography
Criterion Collection. Threepenny Opera. 2007. Rated NR. Original release, 1931.
Giles, Steven. Bertolt Brecht and critical theory: marxism, modernity and the Threepenny lawsuit. Bern: Lang, 1997.
Methuen Drama Student Edition. Trans. Kuhn, Tom and Ryland, Charlotte. Bertolt Brecht: Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. London: A&C Black, 2009.
<endnotes will be posted soon>
“theatre.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 18 Jan. 2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/590239/theatre>.
“epic theatre.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 18 Jan. 2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/189683/epic-theatre>.
Giles, Steven. Bertolt Brecht and critical theory: marxism, modernity and the Threepenny lawsuit. Bern: Lang, 1997. P. 86.
“Kurt Weill The Three Penny Opera: Plot Synopsis and Character Description of Die Dreigroschenoper.” Suite 101, 2010. <http://german-opera.suite101.com/article.cfm/kurt_weill_the_three_penny_opera#ixzz0cRVsDbga>
Sources: Martin, Nicholas Ivor. The Da Capo Opera Manual, New York: Da Capo Press, 1997. / Riding, Alan Riding and L.D. Downer. Opera, DK Eyewitness Companions. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2006.
Simon Studio blog. May 1, 2007 <http://simonstudio.wordpress.com/category/bertolt-brecht/>.
Methuen Drama Student Edition. Trans. Kuhn, Tom and Ryland, Charlotte. Bertolt Brecht: Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. London: A&C Black, 2009. Commentary, xiv.
Methuen Drama Student Edition. Trans. Kuhn, Tom and Ryland, Charlotte. Bertolt Brecht: Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. London: A&C Black, 2009. Commentary, xxii.
James Leonard, 2009. All Music Guide. Answers website. 18 Jan. 2010. <http://www.answers.com/topic/die-moritat-von-mackie-messer-the-ballad-of-mack-the-knife-song-for-voice-piano-from-die-dreigroschenoper>.
“Mack the Knife,” Wikipedia. 18 Jan. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_the_Knife#Original_German_text>.
1994 translation: A much darker translation by Robert David MacDonald and Jeremy Sams into English was used for the 1994 Donmar Warehouse theatrical production in London. The new translation attempted to recapture the original tone of the song.
Musical Commentary Blog: “About last night” by Terry Teachout: http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/2009/01/tt_more_ingredients.html
Giles, Steven. Bertolt Brecht and critical theory: marxism, modernity and the Threepenny lawsuit. Bern: Lang, 1997. P. 13.
#1 by transatlantica on 20 January 2010 - 1:50 AM
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