Mahagonny, built on sewage under a carpet of smog, is a trap to snare the greedy. In this fictional city, money rules. Sex sells. Nihilism bangs the loudest drum. “No hope, no glimmer, the lights grow dimmer,” sing the chorus, who also tell us, repeatedly, charmingly, they drink until they “spew”. As metaphor, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), composed by Kurt Weill with words by Bertolt Brecht, is as subtle as a headbutt. Little happens. The text goes round and round with the obliviousness of a pub bore. You know you’ve heard it all before, but unfortunately lost the subject of the sentence early on. Never mind. The gist yells at you. Capitalism and excess, whether in boom-bust late-1920s America or in the tottering Weimar Republic, are under attack.
