Utter the words “riot” and “classical music” in the same breath and you’ll likely conjure images of the Parisian haute monde feigning shock at the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Or perhaps impresario Erhard Buschbeck’s pugilistic attempt against one of the more antagonistic patrons of the Wiener Musikverein during a Second Viennese School showcase that same year (described by composer Oscar Straus in a subsequent lawsuit as “the most harmonious sound of the evening”). But the third prong of musical Modernism, led by the diminutive Kurt Weill and his scabrous collaborator Bertolt Brecht, rarely gets a mention in the highlights reel of classical anarchy – despite its politically charged performance history.

The pair are perhaps best known for their 1928 masterpiece The Threepenny Opera. But it was their second collaboration, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, that turned their newly-found fame into infamy. The three-act drama follows the founding, flourishing and demise of a pseudo-American “paradise city” called Mahagonny. Here the only currency is vice. Anything goes – just as long as you have the money to pay for it. So when new resident Jim Mahoney loses everything betting on a fight he is unceremoniously sentenced to death. Even his lover Jenny refuses to bail him out. “In the whole human race there’s no greater criminal than a man without money” announces Mahagonny’s co-founder Begbick at the climax of the trial.

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