The Threepenny Opera, by UC College-Conservatory of Music Musical Theatre

Music by Kurt Weill
Book and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
English Adaptation by Marc Blitzstein
Robin Guarino, director
Roger Grodsky, musical director
Patti James, choreographer
Adapted from an eighteenth-century ballad opera by John Gay, The Threepenny Opera offers a Marxist critique of the capitalist world. Set in an anachronistic Victorian London, The Threepenny Opera is a work of epic theatre, challenging conventional notions of property and theatre. Part satire, part shock effects, part aesthetic… Show more innovation, part moral indictment and part sheer theatrical diversion, it asks a still-relevant question: "Who is the bigger criminal: the man who robs a bank or the man who founds one?" Deeply influenced by jazz, its opening lament, "Mack the Knife,” has become a standard recorded by Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé and countless others. Since its opening, The Threepenny Opera has been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times. Mature subject matter.

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