What attitudes towards modernity emerge from ‘Mahagonny' and

how do the dramatic techniques serve to communicate these?

Bertolt Brecht’s second operatic collaboration with Kurt Weill, “Aufstieg und Fall der
Stadt Mahagonny”, was written over the period 1926-29, moving towards the twilight of
the Weimar Republic and the dawn of the Nazi regime in 1933. The concomitant social
tumult of this political shift might have inspired Brecht to write a libretto commenting on
fascism in Germany and the bleak outlook if Hitler were to gain power. However, in a
letter to his publisher, Weill laid out a different vision: “The piece we are going
to create,” he said, “won’t exploit topical themes, which will be dated in a year, but rather
will reflect the true tenor of our times.” (Hunter 296)i Weill therefore explicitly rejects
engaging with the events in the newspapers, instead aiming to capture something more
fundamental to his society in the condition of modernity. Themes of avarice and
uninhibited human indulgence are central, and as such the opera can be said to target both
personal human inadequacy in its critique, as well as wider social failings. Brechtian
theatrical techniques invite the audience to be critical agents, observing the actions of
characters and drawing from them conclusions about the hypocrisy of themselves and
their fellow congregants. This is the edifying ideal for which Brecht strove, transforming
a venue of entertainment into a morally didactic education centre, and thus revitalising
opera which was thought to be a foundering art form.

Sybaritism and self-indulgence quickly become the dominant modes of life in the
purportedly paradisical City of Mahagonny - the concrete form which comes to represent
all the social and individual ills exhibited by characters in the opera. Indeed, Begbick
delineates her aims as a founder in Scene One, declaring “Es ist die Wollust der Männer /
Nicht zu leiden und alles zu dürfen. / Das ist der Kern des Goldes. / Gin und Whisky /
Mädchen und Knaben.” (Brecht 8)ii “Wollust”, then – rendered in English as “lust” or
“voluptuousness” – becomes central to the city’s vision, catalysed by excessive
alcoholism. Furthermore, wealth (“Gold”) is sought after by all of Mahagonny’s
inhabitants, but to the end of carnal pleasure only, be it culinary, sexual, violent or
alcoholic. The parallelism of “Nicht zu leiden” and “alles zu dürfen” implies a conditional
syllogism, i.e., that lack of suffering is predicated on lack of inhibitions, moral or
otherwise; this, perhaps, is the myth of modernity Brecht most pointedly undermines in
the opera, where freedom allows corruption to thrive. It is typical of Brecht’s Episches
Theater that the baseness of man is spelt out plainly, by direct address to the audience,
and not by way of plot or character development - the dearth of naturalistic features is
such that Theodor Adorno called Mahagonny “the first surrealist opera.” (Goehr 3-4)iii As
such, Brecht is free to be highly didactic in his style, juxtaposing verse about grand
themes like the character of man, with the banal conversations of townspeople.
There is a possible hypocrisy in Brecht’s theatrical philosophy, however. He defines
the status of opera in Germany as kulinarisch in his “Anmerkung zur Oper” (Brecht 86),
because it “dient dem Genuß, auch wo sie Bildung verlangt oder vermittelt.” Aiming to
engage in serious social commentary, this is a problem for the playwright whose medium
belongs to the self-same category he criticises – namely, entertainment and indulgence.
Similarly, Weill suggests that the theatre of the past “sought to titillate, excite, stimulate,
and upset the spectator,” whereas his and Brecht’s theatre count on “a spectator who
follows the proceedings with the quiet composure of a thinking man and who, since he
really wants to think, perceives any demand on his pleasure centres as an annoyance.”
(Goehr 9) Yet Mahagonny is abound with song, comedy and irony which provides this
supposedly rejected pleasure - for example, the parodic outraged judge, who declares
after a murder and a Zechprellerei that “Niemals je / Wurde eine Tat verübt / So voller
Roheit.” (Brecht 66) On the one hand, this deadpan absurdity will excite laughter from
the audience, and therefore disrupt Weill’s ideal of “quiet composure”. Alternatively, the
grotesque content of the events might instantiate a Verfremdungseffekt, by which the
audience has its disbelief unsuspended and can therefore view the scene not as a part of a
narrative, but rather as an allegorical critique of modernity. Here, Brecht’s target is the
capitalist logic which holds bankruptcy to be a crime tantamount to murder. The verb
“verübt” construes this as an act of Paul’s own volition, but in its verfremdeten state, the
audience is able to recognise this as a mechanism of capitalism and reflect on its
pervasiveness in society. As such, Brechtian dramatic techniques are closely associated
with a rejection of capitalist modernity.

The opera coheres in its variety by means of sung motifs, which are characteristically
Brechtian in their strong moral message and lack of subtlety. In Scene 11, the spectre of
an approaching hurricane causes Paul to repeat “Wir brauchen keinen Hurrikan / Wir
brauchen keinen Taifun / Denn was er an Schrecken tun kann / Das können wir selber
tun.” (Brecht 37) The iambic tetrameter here is rhymed, giving the passage the rhythmic
quality of an upbeat song – but the semantic meaning of the words concerns the depravity
of man. This accords with Brecht’s belief in the “Trennung der Elemente”: that the
various components of an opera (instruments, voice, spoken word, backdrop etc.) should
not form a unity like a Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, but rather should be independent
and discordant. Critiquing the “Schmelzung” of these elements into one, Brecht writes
“Der Schmelzprozeß erfaßt den Zuschauer, der ebenfalls eingeschmolzen wird und einen
passiven (leidenden) Teil des Gesamtkunstwerks darstellt. Solche Magie ist natürlich zu
bekämpfen.” (89) Once again, then, Brecht believes that such inconsistency as this will
serve as a Verfremdungseffekt to force the audience to be critical. Instead of “etwas
gegenübergesetzt [zu werden]” the viewer is “in etwas hineingesetzt” (87). Brecht’s use
of the noun ‘Magie’ is particularly interesting, as it implies his belief that a lucid, rational
mind are required for any critique of modernity to be successful.
It is this spectatorial lucidity that another repeated technique in the opera rests upon:
the use of signage. Each of the indulgences the Mahagonnyers engage in are marked with
a “riesengroß” (46) tablet in the background explicitly denoting their activity (e.g.
“LIEBEN”, “KÄMPFEN”). This throws the scenes they hover over in a different light by
giving them the status of case studies, representative of the broader theme on the sign. It
is perhaps what Brecht meant when, in a 1946 letter, he said that he wanted audience to
“be transformed into social experimenters.” (Ray 83)iv Signage also represents a breaking
of the fourth wall, which forces the spectators to recognise the limits of the operatic form
and consider their own role in the production. As such, when each of the signed activities
ends in death – for example when Jakob “fällt tot um” (Brecht 45) – we recognise this
both as a death within the context of the play, and an indictment of the excess being
indulged in, as well as the corrupt modern society that caused this.

Very early in the Opera, Brecht establishes that these excesses are characteristic of the
modern condition - base hungers that fill a void vacated of faith in God or Country. The
play’s structure may be partly a montage, but it also has a fatalism which emphasises the
inevitability of civic collapse under the weight of unfettered debauchery. Most notably,
the chorus by the men establishes a framework by which the opera can showcase and
reveal the evils of various vices encouraged in modernity. “Erstens, vergeßt nicht, kommt
das Fressen / Zweitens kommt der Liebesakt / Drittens das Boxen nicht vergessen /
Viertens Saufen, laut Kontrakt,” they sing, almost ritually. The integration of these ills
into a repeated motif speaks to the internalised drive for consumption inherent to the
capitalist subject. The activities correlate to the deadly sins of gluttony, lust, wrath and
avarice, and indeed the last major collaboration between Kurt and Weill was 1933’s The
Seven Deadly Sins, which continued this theme. As such, like a classical tragedy, the
trajectory of the characters in the play is predestined, suggesting that the state of
modernity will be similarly doomed.
Of course, the title of the play bespeaks this fatalism, and the hope of the characters is
always in vain. If the Biblical reference above is accepted, then the unmitigated fall of the
town seems even more cemented, damned like “the biblical cities of the plain, Sodom and
Gomorrah.” (Hunter 296) for committing sin. Such links will be more obvious to the
analytical, verfremdete audience. Modernity, then, is critiqued most fundamentally by
tapping into ancient themes, but using modern techniques to ensure these are received in
an original way.

Brecht’s episches Theather may have, like other theatrical and operatic ventures,
participated in the capitalist drive of modernity. However, that it did this self-consciously,
and by presenting a corrupted vision of the inevitable ends to such a system, made it a
radical rejection of the vices of modernity. Brechtian theatre may be more educational
than other modes, but Brecht insists that “Theatre remains theatre even when it is
instructive theatre, and in so far as it is good theatre it will amuse.” (Goehr 14)
Amusement, then, is not sacrificed wholly on the altar of Anti-kulinarisches Aktion.
Instead, the educational becomes the entertaining, and Brecht’s surreal and arguably ‘flat’
play, becomes a piece of social commentary.

END
i
Hunter, Robert. “The Music of Change: Utopian Transformation in Aufstieg Und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny and
Der Silbersee.” Utopian Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, Penn State University Press, 2010, pp. 293–312,
https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.21.2.0293.
ii
Brecht, Bertolt. “Aufstieg Und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny”, 31st edn. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin, 2018.
iii
Goehr, Lydia. “Hardboiled Disillusionment: ‘Mahagonny’ as the Last Culinary Opera.” Cultural Critique, no. 68,
University of Minnesota Press, 2008, pp. 3–37, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25475460.
iv
Ray, Gene. "Adorno, Brecht and Debord: Three Models for Resisting the Capitalist Art System." Nordic Journal of
Aesthetics 44-45 (2012): 83. Web.