Overview

A major work from the remarkable partnership of playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, Mahagonny was first performed in Leipzig in 1930. Its first ever Royal Opera staging, by Associate Director of Opera John Fulljames, is sung in English, and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth – recently announced as the successor to Edward Gardner as Music Director of English National Opera. Mahagonny is a satire on money, morality and pleasure-seeking among the dubious citizens of a fictional city. The richly varied, jazz-infused score, influenced by ragtime music, includes such irresistible melodies as the ‘Alabama Song’ and many dramatic ensembles. The superb cast includes Kurt Streit as the wild lumberjack Jimmy, Christine Rice as his sweetheart Jenny, Anne Sofie von Otter in a welcome return to The Royal Opera as the cunning Leokadja Begbick, and Peter Hoare and Willard W. White as her helpers and fellow-fugitives Fatty and Moses.

Top Cast

Anne Sofie von Otter

Leokadja Begbick

Peter Hoare

Fatty

Willard White

Trinity Moses

Christine Rice

Jenny Smith

K

Kurt Streit

Jimmy MacIntyre

J

Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts

Jack O'Brien

D

Darren Jeffrey

Bank Account Billy

N

Neal Davies

Alaska Wolf Joe

T

Toby Higgins

Hugh Francis