The last title of the 2022 Opera Season of Teatro Regio di Parma was Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny by Kurt Weill on a libretto by Bertolt Brecht, which had its premiere in this theater in co-production with Fondazione Teatri di Reggio Emilia, directed by HENNING BROCKHOUS, with the sets of MARGHERITA PALLI & conducted by CHRISTOPHER FRANKLIN.
Therefore, we have a modern opera staged in a pretty traditionalist and conservative place such as Teatro Regio di Parma. One could say that it’s a tricky choice. But innovation, especially when well staged, won over tradition this time, fortunately I’d say. In the era of the Weimar Republic, which was cancelled by Hilter’s rise to power, in the Austro-Germanic land rich in artistic ferment of all kinds, Brecht & Weill wanted to speak out loud to the rich German public of the ‘30s, in order to point out to the inadequacy of a society centered on corrupt values, its decadence and its inevitable and imminent end. So they created a non-place that could generate a series of important questions, within a live performance genre.
Leokadja Begbick, Fatty & Trinity Moses, fugitives on the run, wanted by the police on charges of lynching and fraudulent bankruptcy, get stranded due to a car breakdown in a deserted place not far from the gold diggers’ routes. So they decide to found a city to become a place of pleasure for those with money. The town’s fame spreads quickly, and so Jenny, a young prostitute, six other girls who will populate the brothel and also four lumberjacks arrive: Jimmy, Jack, Bill and Joe who, after seven hard years of work in Alaska, want to have fun. Jim falls in love with Jenny and begins an uncertain and somewhat awkward relationship with her.
However, the good times are short-lived: soon, in order to combat delinquency, the town is filled with too many laws and absurd prohibitions. Despite the fact that whisky costs very little, people tend to leave and the earnings of the three founders are not what they had hoped for. Even Jimmy is annoyed by this too rigid town organization, demanding that everything must be allowed in Mahagonny.
And that’s what we se on stage: a place that recalls in many ways the Wild West, according to the booklet, in the aestheties of Echward Hoppers paintings (?), due to the sets of MANGHERITA PALLI, the costumes by GIANCARLO COLIS, the lighting by PASQUALE MARI. Remarkably interesting was the choreography of the cabaret moments by VALENTINA ESCOBAR, but also the fact that HENNING BROCKHAUS brought the protagonists closer to the audience through a catwalk surrounding the orchestra pit, almost in a cinematic type of staging. He keeps on stage continuously a shapeless human agglomerate covered in colourless rags in the background. They are the poor, exploited, forgotten, doing their best surviving by feeding on the scraps of the welfare society.
Some of the singers were called in at the last minute to replace indisposed colleagues, as NADJA MCHANTAF, an excellent Jenny Hill, MATHIAS GREY as Jack O’Brien & SIMON SCHNORR.
ALISA KOLOSOVA, righteously the most appreciated by the public in the role of
CHRIS MERRITT (Fatty) is a legend that doesn’t need any presentation or comment, but only a sincere chapeau bas for his entire career.
Completing the cast there were ZOLTAN NAGY (Trinity Moses), such a spectacular stage presence (I recommend you to read his interview in the previous issue of OPERA Charm Magazine), TOBIAS HÄCHLER (Jimmy Malorey – the right timbre, attitude and manner of singing for the role, but also exquisite acting skills, mostly noticed in the end of the opera, when his characters is condemned to the death punishment) and JERZY BUTRYN (Joe), but also ROXANA HERRERA, ELVABETH HERTZBERG, YULIA TKACHENKO, CECILIA BERNINI, KAMELIA KADER, MARIANGELA MARINI (6 girls of Mahagonny) and FILIPPO LANZI (the Narrator). My sincere appreciation goes to these 6 ladies that proved themselves to be flexible enough to sing and act well (!!!) in lingerie. The modern opera singer casual requirements, I would add.
Despite the many changes within the cast, the conductor CHRISTOPHER FRANKLIN guided the the opera with a dynamic expert hand the varied stylistic transitions that Weill grafts onto his score. LA TOSCANINI, with its guest instruments, banjo, guitar, sitar and bandoneon, responded well, once again confirming its ability to adhere excellently to pretty much any score, just as the choir the Teatro Regio, prepared by M° Martino Faggiani.
