Die Dreigroschenoper

Dreigroschenoper, Die, an opera by B. Brecht with music by K. Weill, written in 1928, published in 1929, and first produced in Berlin (Theater am Schiffbauerdamm) in August 1928. It is an adaptation of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay.

Brecht has more or less preserved Gay's plot, but has set the action against a background of Victorian London; he thus secured the opportunity to lay the blame for the existence of an underworld at the feet of bourgeois society. Most of the dialogue and the songs (19 in all) have been rewritten, revised, or extended, to make them topical for conditions in Germany. The new songs include ‘Die Ballade vom angenehmen Leben der Hitlerstaaten’ and the ‘Schlußchoral’. In Versuche, 3, Brecht states: ‘Die Dreigroschenoper ist ein Versuch im epischen Theater.’ The application of his theories is elaborated in Anmerkungen zur Dreigroschenoper. Winke für Schauspieler. (Film version by G. W. Pabst, 1931.)