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The Threepenny Opera (1995)

Name: The Threepenny Opera
Director: Hans Hollmann
Genre: Music
Released: 1995-01-01
Duration: 2 h 43 min
Rating: 9.0
Cast: Friedrich Karl Praetorius, Jürgen Holtz, Ingeborg Engelmann, Katherina Lange, Axel Böhmert

IMDb 9.02h 43mMusic

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Plot Summary

The Threepenny Opera proclaims itself "an opera for beggars," and it was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of two young German artists, composer Kurt Weill and poet-playwright Bert Brecht. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny's source, The Beggar's Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel's operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue following the overture, a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, "Mack the Knife." The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria's coronation. In this production, Weill champion HK Gruber led the Ensemble Modern in a performance of Weill's complete original score, the first time it had been heard in Germany in many years. This production was broadcast on German television (3sat).