Back to Catalogue

Kurt Weill: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone, Anthony Dean Griffey
John Doyle, stage director
Los Angeles Opera
James Conlon

Welcome to Mahagonny, where sin is “in” and love is always on sale. This Old West boomtown rises from the desert to become a razzle-dazzle mecca for lust, liberty, and the pursuit of pleasure. Cash is king, poverty is punishable by death, and anything worth doing is worth overdoing. With book and lyrics by the influential playwright Bertolt Brecht, Four-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald stars as Jenny, a tart-with-a-heart, and Broadway legend Patti LuPone as the town's feisty madam Kurt Weill (composer of “Mack the Knife” and the Threepenny Opera) penned a haunting score, which crosses over from opera to cabaret to Broadway including ragtime, jazz, raucous music hall songs and the classic pop hit “Moon of Alabama”. John Doyle, the director of Broadway's smash hit revival of Sweeney Todd, delivers a risqué new production as controversial as the original one banned by the Nazis in the 1930s. The provocative work that inspired the Broadway hits Cabaret and Chicago. A gripping evening of grand entertainment! This programme earned 2009 two Grammy® Awards for Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording.

Awards
2009 Grammy® for Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording

Facts

Prog. No.
5625
Music genre
Opera
Length
133 mins
Director
Gary Halvorson
Producers
Los Angeles Opera, EuroArts Music International, Thirteen/WNET N.Y., Helen Chou
Production year
2007
Format
HD