Opera Between the Wars:

1920s Berlin - Alban Berg and Kurt Weill

Key terms

Naturalism

Gebrauchsmusik

Epic theatre

Alban Berg (1885-1935)

Berg, Wozzeck, 1914-22

Opera in 3 ActsLibretto by Berg based on Woyzeck by Georg Büchner (1813-37)

*Wozzeck

Marie - Wozzeck’s wife

Boy - Marie’s son

*Andres - Wozzeck’s friend

Margret - Marie’s neighbor

Captain

Drum Major

Doctor

* = Sprechgesang roles

STRUCTURE OF WOZZECK

Act I “Five Character Studies”

Scene 1. Suite

Scene 2. Rhapsody

Scene 3. March and Lullaby

Scene 4. Passacaglia

Scene 5. Rondo

Act II “Symphony in Five Movements”

Scene 1. Sonata allegro

Scene 2. Fantasy and fugue

Scene 3. Largo

Scene 4. Scherzo

Scene 5. Rondo martiale

Act III “Inventions”

Scene 1. Theme and 6 variations, fugue

Scene 2. Invention on a tone (B-natural)

Scene 3. Invention on a rhythm

Scene 4. Invention on a 6-note chord

Scene 5. Invention on an eighth-note duration

Kurt Weill (1900-50)

with Lotte Lenya (1898-1981)

Weill, The Threepenny Opera, 1928

Opera

Libretto by Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

and Elisabeth Hauptmann, based on John Gay’s The Beggar’s

Opera (1728)

Setting:

London, 1700s

Characters:

Macheath “Mac the Knife” - head street robber

Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum - head beggar

Polly Peachum - daughter betrothed to Macheath

Lucy - a wife of Macheath, with child, sheriff’s daughter

Sheriff Brown - arrests Macheath

Queen - exonerates and knights Macheath

Jenny – prostitute

Scene 1: “Ballad of Mac the Knife” (“Moritat von Mackie Messer”)

(from the 1931 film)