FEB 17, 2026
BY GEORGE HALL
LONDON COLISEUM

“Makes a fair shot of balancing stylistic incongruity”

Brecht and Weill’s largest collaborative piece remains divisive

Ever since its opening night in Leipzig in 1930 – which turned into a riot – Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s opera has courted controversy, partly through its irredeemably bleak view of human life and indeed humanity itself, but also through a mixture of musical languages that, at that time, must have seemed wilfully incompatible and still feels violently jarring. We owe it to Weill – thoroughly steeped in the German classical tradition, which he would subvert in this piece and others – that the score registers, and with a heavy dose of irony involved, contains at least some humanity. How seriously we are meant to take the self-undercutting nostalgia of such numbers as the much-recorded Alabama Song, or the poignant Benares Song, remains a moot point.

In terms of staging the piece, there’s a balance to be discovered: between the total alienation the opera seems to aim at in, not engaging the audience’s emotions and in confronting us with our own deplorable personal or societal behaviour; and, on the other hand, an unavoidable sympathy with the fate of the central character, Jimmy MacIntyre (Mahoney in the original German text), who is executed in the final act due to the crime of having no money. Directed by Jamie Manton and designed by Milla Clarke, with DM Wood’s lighting blanching out the limited colour on stage, English National Opera’s staging makes a fair shot at striking that balance. A demerit of the meagre set, however, is that voices have little to bounce off before they reach the back wall and, consequently, some vocal lines don’t quite make it over the footlights.

But others do. Authentic Heldentenor Simon O’Neill’s Jimmy has no trouble with his lengthy, arduous role, and his clumsy personality and big-hearted singing engage. Rosie Aldridge brings a fine blend of punch and pizazz to Leokadja Begbick, leader of the criminal gang that creates the moral wasteland that is the titular city of Mahagonny. Kenneth Kellogg and Mark Le Brocq do well as her miscreant associates, Trinity Moses and Fatty the Bookkeeper.

Once again, Danielle de Niese shows her skill in creating a memorable character as chief sex worker Jenny. As her put-upon clients, ex-lumberjacks Alex Otterburn (Bank-Account Billy), Elgan Llŷr Thomas (Jack O’Brien) and David Shipley (Alaska Wolf Joe) all deliver.

In his first appearance in the pit since his appointment as ENO’s next music director was announced, André de Ridder maintains a high-energy, high-volume approach. Music staff member Murray Hipkin does a terrific turn in his virtuoso keyboard rendition of Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska’s 1856 piano piece The Maiden’s Prayer, encapsulating the entire work’s stylistic incongruity in a nutshell.