A BigCityComic after John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera”
Music /Lyrics: Moritz Eggert.
By Balletto Civile (IT), the Neuköllner Oper and Freiraum Syndikat
World premiere October 19, 2017
With English surtitles
Signor Peachum has a problem (and it’d be nice if it only were one). Not only do the organs of the state have a different concept of professional success, not only does his wife cultivate quite an intimate relationship with the staff; on top of all of it, his daughter Polly went crazy: she surreptitiously married MacHeath!
Nothing against the honorable criminal, but would you really sell her only profitable capital (her innocence) below cost? Now MacHeath has problems as well, because Signor Peachum likes his son in law better dead than alive (on that note, where is this Famiglia from anyways: from Calabria? Palermo??). And finally there’s prison ward Lockit and his daughter Lucy, and they have some unfinished business with MacHeath and the oh-so-proper Peachum family…
“The Beggar’s Opera,” meaning a opera told by a beggar, is the original format of alternative musical theater. With it, John Gay and Samuel Pepusch radically and ironically reflect upon the conventions of operatic structures of London’s society around 1735 (and Brecht/Weill turned it into a world success with the “Threepenny Opera”).
For the Neuköllner Oper’s anniversary, we pay tribute to its earlier, successful production and retell this urban legend. Charged with the physical energy, joyous movements, and virtuosity of Balletto Civile, ten German and Italian performers will play, sing, and “move” this tale upside down: love and betrayal, business and crime. La BETTLEROPERa is invited to the Kurt Weill Festival 2018 Dessau.
Stage Direction/Choreography: Michela Lucenti | Musical Direction: Lukas Dreyer | Dramaturgy: Bernhard Glocksin | Stage Design: Sabrina Rossetto | Costume Design: Rebekka Dornhege Reyes
Featuring: Maurizio Camilli, Ambra Chiarello, Christopher »Crsto« Ciraulo, Sophia Euskirchen, Nicole Kehrberger, Jörn Linnenbröker, Michela Lucenti, Emanuela Serra, Demian Troiano, Emilio Vacca and Danilo Andres Sepulveda Cofre, Thora Hohberg, Christian Schaaf, Ini Dill, Rafeu Ahmed, Ada Sternberg and the Freiraum Syndikat.