In a 1929 review of The Threepenny Opera, Felix Salten wrote: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay... the young Weill's music is as distinctive as Brecht's language, as electrifying in its rhythm as the lines of the poems, as deliberately and triumphantly banal and full of allusion as the divulging rhymes, as witty in its jazzy treatment of the instruments, equally contemporary, cheerful and full of humor and aggression, like the lyrics. (qtd. in Hinton, 188) These characteristics described by Salten seem to refer to the concept of gestus, which is a difficult word to interpret but which nevertheless became the crucial link connecting Brecht's theories on acting, dramaturgy and production theatrical. In epic theater, actors become demonstrators of a character, rather than the characters themselves (rather than using Stanislavski's method of acting, which relies on an actor "putting himself in the shoes of a character"). Brecht wanted his actors to always remember that they were playing another person's story and emotions. More importantly, epic artists are always interested in larger social relationships, rather than the selfishness of becoming trapped in their own character. Gestus expresses these broader social relations with “the idea of ​​contradiction and opposition and the need to find a visible and theatrically effective way to express both opposites and the unity of these opposites” (Morley 186)1. Simply put, the gesture is the representation of the theatrical moment that expresses the social relationships and attitudes that the work deals with. The desired effect on the audience is verfremdungseffekt, literally, "the effect of making strange". concept of the Threepenny Opera by creating ways to musically assist the performer in displaying the appropriate attitude at any given moment. Music, Brecht said, “became an active collaborator in the stripping away of the corpus of bourgeois ideas” (Brecht on the Theatre, 85-6). The music deliberately contrasted with its lyrics aims to emphasize the satirical nature of the Threepenny Opera and the madness of its bourgeois characters. Musically, Ronald Taylor suggests that gestural music is initially expressed "in the 'rhythmic arrangement of the text,' then driven home by the insistent rhythms and biting harmonies of the accompaniment and given its penetrating finishing touch in the brash, intrusive instrumentation of the jazz band ". , the sharpest weapon in Weill's satirical armory” (137). While Peter W. Ferran and others are primarily concerned with the lyrical gesture of the Threepenny Opera, the lyrical gesture goes hand in hand with the musical gesture (as described by Weill and Taylor) in every song,3 and is the combination of the two which makes the songs effective. These different gestures serve to create a grand gesture, through which the piece's intentions and satirical social attitudes are conveyed to the audience. To demonstrate these attitudes musically, Weill deliberately rejected traditional Handelian opera and wrote a jazzy, syncopated, dissonant score, working on melodies from North and South American popular music, which was a fad in Berlin at the time (Fuegi 199). This music encapsulates the ironic tone of Brecht's lyrics4 and libretto5, satirizing the workings of both traditional opera and the German bourgeoisie. This satirical gesture is imposed on the audience the moment the orchestra hits the first note of the performance. The instrumentation eschews the traditionally operatic string ensemble in favor of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, timpani, banjo, and harmonium (Sanders 115). The description of the prologueof an opera “so cheap even a beggar can afford it”6 is followed by a mockingly pompous, harmonically minor and rhythmically laborious baroque overture. The listener can almost imagine Weill's wry smile as he first wrote the repetitive scale-based melody and the Haydn-like efforts of each individual beat. As Foster Hirsch notes, the overture is in 3/4 time (like a good number of songs from Threepenny), "but asymmetrically and with an unpredictable and seemingly inept voice within its repeating chords" (44). This style shocks the audience from the beginning; it becomes clear that “here is a music that will speak with a forked tongue” (Taylor 137). “The Ballad of Mac the Knife” (“Moritat vom Mackie Messer”), in the historically recognizable Bänkelgesang format, is a perfect example of a work that “matches the gestural.” According to Peter W. Ferran, “a Bänkelsänger was a medieval and early Renaissance storyteller who traveled the countryside of Central Europe performing a kind of warning song about legendary figures... One kind of Bänkelgesang was the Moritat, which celebrated – in moralizing form, with the help of illustrated signs – the atrocious actions perpetrated by notorious criminals” (7-8). The music for “Mac the Knife” is based on the “motto melody,”8 which, according to Hans Keller, “demonstrates not only the melodic, but also the harmonic, cell of much of the work” (147). The added sixth, which David Drew calls the “Moritat motif” (151), is a common device in jazz composition, providing a somewhat jarring feel to the entire structure. This discordance is due to the quality of the sixth as "the inhibitory degree par excellence, because its opposition to the tonic is based on the strongest possible chord measure... hence the arch-inhibition, the interrupted cadence V-VI.. . the sixth addition is the most correct 'wrong' note” (Keller 147). The ballad is played in an easy, blues-like tempo and with a deceptive near-repetition of its sixteen-bar melody (Fuegi 202). As Kim Kowalke notes, "each verse after the first two is dressed in a new musical garb cobbled together from altered instrumentation, rhythmic patterns, countermelodies, and dynamics" (qtd. in Fuegi 202). The blues break in 4/4 is a stark contrast to the lyrics, which sound like a rap sheet of Macheath's crimes: From the murky waters of the ThamesMen fall suddenly. Is it plague or cholera? Or a sign that Macheath is in town? (3PO 3)9The list is quite long and includes nine verses. One gets the sense that this is just the beginning of the breadth of Macheath's transgressions, as if the Street Singer could go on listing Macheath's crimes for an entire evening. Here, Weill's sentimental melody and Brecht's sharp lyrics work together to appeal to the bourgeois audience that constantly occupied the Berlin opera scene. The hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie is exposed, drawing a parallel between the criminals of Macheath's world, who drown men and rape women, and the criminals of Berlin's financial world, who increase their personal wealth by robbing the poor. Macheath echoes this sentiment in the third act: “What does breaking a bank mean versus starting a bank? What is killing a man compared to hiring one?” (3PO 76). Geoffrey Abbott tells us that in the original production of The Threepenny Opera, Weill used “Mac the Knife” as the instrumental accompaniment to Macheath's entrances, with the style matching the mood of the particular scene. For example, when Macheath is led to the gallows, the song was to be played “like a funeral march” (168). Apparently, this device is no longer commonly used in Threepenny Opera productions, but it may be helpful to remember Brecht and Weill's satirical intent in the production, while also rememberingthat parody and satire are created in part by repetition. It is possible that, by repeating “Mac the Knife” throughout the production, Brecht and Weill struck a subtle blow at the world of opera music (which constantly repeats melodic themes, but in all seriousness), as well as the world of high German bourgeoisie, whose circumstances may vary, but the basic “tune” (or way of life) remains the same. The Moritat motif of the sixth addition returns again in “Peachum's Morning Hymn” (“Morgenchorale des Peachum”), in which Jonathan Peachum cynically tells the audience about his world, full of dishonest criminals. The song is delivered as a deliberate, self-righteous waltz in a dirge-like minor key, read like a sermon and accompanied by a large organ. (Melodically we have already classified it as one of the “Moritat motifs”, but rhythmically and stylistically we could call it the “Peachum motif”.) Peachum considers himself above these “ramshackle Christians” (3PO 5). , although the “angry pietism” (Sanders 115) that Peachum offers hardly suits a man who runs a business that supplies beggars and takes a fifty percent cut of their meager earnings. Non and Nick Worrall note that Peachum's angry character emerges especially in the original German text, "Verschacher dein Ehweib, du Wicht!" (“And sell your old woman, you rat!” [lxvi]). These guttural consonants allow the actor playing Peachum to spit his words with a pious fury that clearly illustrates his character from the start. Peachum commonly sings slowly and evenly, as if he realizes his hypocrisies and hopes his style will proselytize him. Drew suggests that by using this repetition of the added sixth, "the chord acquires, over the course of the score, such an important signaling [sic] function that one might well describe it as the Dreigroschenoper chord" (Drew 151). He describes the use of the Dreigroschenoper chord and the Moritat motif as "necromantic evocation" (150) but does not explain the dramatic connotations of the motif. Using these two examples listed above, it is possible to find a dramatic line within a melodic line and, in doing so, find Weill's satirical gesture in these pieces. The two songs together form a single message for the audience, using the Moritat motif as a grouping mechanism. First the Street Singer appears and tells us the story of Macheath, with his knife “not in such an obvious place” (3PO 3). This scene immediately gives way to Peachum's song, in which we see another man taking advantage of the poor, albeit through less violent means.10 Later in the first act, Macheath and Peachum's daughter Polly are married in a stall with Macheath's companions as witnesses. . After the men are unable to provide a suitable wedding song ("Wedding Song for the Less Well-Off" or "Hochzeits-Lied"), Polly volunteers her talents for entertainment. The song "Pirate Jenny" ("Seeräuberjenny") is the story of a barmaid Polly saw in a Soho bar. The barmaid, furious at her customers' mistreatment of her, predicts that one day a pirate ship "with eight sails and all her fifty cannons loaded" (3PO 20) will appear in the harbor and destroy the entire city, saving the city itself. Pirate Jenny. . The song is based on Senta's revenge ballad in Wagner's Flying Dutchman, and here Weill creates a similar "quasi-Wagnerian atmosphere of mystery and high expectations, translated into twentieth-century neurotic terms" (Sanders 117). The song has two contrasting sections: the breathless beat of the verse, in which Polly describes the actual process of killing the group, and the slow, sustained, awe-filled descriptionreverential of the ships (the instruments of destruction) in the chorus. , it would be a mistake to interpret this song as an empowering ballad for both women and the lower classes, as it has sometimes been described. Foster Hirsch notes that if "Pirate Jenny" had been sung as a conventional opera, Jenny's revenge would have been accompanied by "the orchestra breaking in and...the soprano spinning through endless histrionic rolls to denote her triumphant retribution " (46). But as we see, when the pirates ask Jenny which of the citizens will die, she responds sweetly: “how many! And as soon as the first heads fall I will say: hoppla!” (3PO 21) In Weill's score, Jenny's “hoppla” is pronounced a cappella. Hirsch suggests that this inflection is similar to today's “whatever,” an irreverent phrase that is emotionless and meaningless (46). The chilling chord progression moves towards the dominant but never resolves, leaving Jenny to set sail in uncertainty rather than in a blaze of newfound strength. "The First Threepenny Finale – Concerning the Insecurity of the Human Condition" ("I. Dreigroschenfinale"), features the Peachums and their daughter, Polly. Peter W. Ferran rightly points out that two vocal modalities are at work here (15). The first is personal (“Is what I desire much?”), in a major key and with a fast tempo. This illustrates Polly's naivety in what she thinks is love: she wants to “enjoy the embraces of a man” (3PO 32), not realizing (yet) that her new husband has at least three other lovers on the side. Peachum intervenes with his pious moralism, complete with Bible in hand. (Note the reappearance of our “Peachum motif”: the cheerful tempo of Polly's words returns in Peachum's deliberate, sustained delivery accompanied by the organ.) Here the impersonal second vocal mode takes over (“Who wouldn't agree? ”) and Ferran notes the transition from a description of Peachum's own circumstances to an observation of common worldly attitudes (15). Finally, the song ends with a “'last word' rhythmic gesture: eight measures of diatonic finality of sixteenths and eighths in G minor, half a step higher than the song's concluding F-sharp minor” (17). This tonal shift seems to musically symbolize the universality of the message: “the world is mean” (Blitzstein). The song is sung in multiple keys and, therefore, its message is applicable to multiple societies. The “Ballad of Immoral Gains” (Zuhälterballade) by Macheath and Jenny is probably the best example of the contrast between music and lyrics in The Threepenny Opera. The song is written like a tango, a South American style often associated with exoticism and romance. Although the tango meter is a fairly simple 2/4, the marked quarter note drives the rhythm and is covered in a rather complex pattern of dotted eighth notes and sixteenth notes, followed by a pair of eighth notes. (This is what tango dancers are referring to when they describe the rhythm as “slow, slow, fast, fast, slow.”) Once again, the syncopation subtly reminds the audience of the current jazz craze in Berlin, giving them a rhythm that is irregular enough to prevent them from being lulled into a sense of complacency. The marked quarter note plays a huge role here: each note is a new attack, rather than each note moving gracefully into the next. (This can be compared to the repetition of the ufficios of the Threepenny Overture.) The minor key exudes a false romanticism, especially when considering the lyrics, which are decidedly unromantic. Tango music and dance were new to Europe in the early 1920s, and Weill appears to have used this new and complex style to emphasize the fact that the relationship (or, rather, sexual arrangement) between Macheath and Jenny it's anything butsimple; rather, it is a pattern of syncopated, sadomasochistic attacks. Jenny describes how Macheath “threw her headlong down the stairs” (3PO 44). The final verse tells the story of Macheath accidentally impregnating Jenny, but to solve the problem, "they dumped him in the sewer" (3PO 44). The alienation here is expressed in the contrast between the music and the lyrics. Equally important is expressed in the lovers' use of the third person when describing each other in a duet (“She was generally complete” [3PO 44]). The epilogue of this song, in which Jenny betrays Macheath, can be seen as another verse illustrating this abusive relationship. Through the song and the following scene the world of the Threepenny Opera emerges clearly: no one is to be trusted and anyone will betray anyone to earn their thirty pieces of silver. This idea ties into the next song, “The Second Threepenny Finale – What Keeps Mankind Alive?” (“II. Dreigroschenfinale”), which concludes the second act. It is in this song that Brecht seems to become expressly political. It is actually made up of three separate systems. Ronald Sanders describes the first system as "appropriately raw...the least operatic of the score's endings, this number sounds like a nightmarish version of a Salvation Army hymn, a choral preaching transformed into an anti-bourgeois black mass" (121 ). It is in this system that Macheath and Jenny utter the famous lines: "Food is first/ Morals follow" and "Mankind can keep itself alive by its ingenuity in keeping its humanity repressed" (3PO 55). Men live by feasting on one another, and morality should not be discussed as long as the poor continue to starve. Macheath takes up the second system, asking, “What keeps humanity alive?” It is important to note here that the question is not, “What keeps the rich alive?” The issue extends to all humanity. In this way Brecht and Weill work together to form the idea that all men survive "through bestial acts" (3PO 56), be they the wealthy Berliners in the audience, men like Jonathan Peachum, or common prostitutes like Jenny. Therefore, the audience should be left to think about the complicated way in which the human race survives, regardless of social status. It is also interesting to note that Macheath sings his opening question ("What keeps a man alive?") in a strong, corona-filled rubato (as if Macheath were saying, "Listen to this"), in a major key. In doing so, he seems to infer (or at least hope) that the answer to the question is easy and satisfactory for everyone. However, this need not be, as he launches into a litany of brutal denunciations against the human race, employing cannibalistic language and derisive cynicism (Blitzstein's Macheath sarcastically reminds us, "He forgets that they are supposed to be his brothers"). this is where the chorus for the third system joins. Peter W. Ferran states that it is the chorus that formulates the thesis of the song: "So gentlemen, let's face the reality: we all survive thanks to crime" (17). He goes on to argue that since the chorus of an opera usually "enunciates an eternal truth", the chorus here becomes the "voice of the times", addressing the hypocrites of the world. The over-articulation of the lyrics and music, with its thunderous verses and antistrophes, purposely keeps the audience in check, reminding them that they are the ones to entrust this message to. Macheath bribed Smith, an officer, to let him out of prison; however, he is betrayed by Jenny again and finds himself back in prison, waiting to be hanged. As he is led to the gallows, Peachum interrupts the action, telling the audience that he cannot risk offending them; therefore, an ending will be substituteddifferent. Here, “justice yields before humanity” (3PO 78), and in “The Third Threepenny Finale – Appearance of the Deus Ex Machina” (“III. Dreigroschenfinale”), Macheath is rebuked by Brown on horseback. Although exaggerated in his performance, Brecht instructed the cast to “carefully fulfill the formal obligations of this final chorus” (Ferran 19). It is, as Weill writes, “an example of the very idea of ​​'work' being used to resolve a conflict, that is, it is given a function in establishing the plot, and consequently must be presented in its purest form and authentic” (qtd in Manheim & Willett, 90). Macheath is saved from the gallows, and Jonathan and Cecilia Peachum stand before the curtain to address the audience directly and remind them that “you rarely meet saviors on horseback. practice”11 (3PO 79). The Peachum motif appears again here, in Peachum's deliberate pacing and sermon-like prose. Drew notes that the “anapestic rhythm” of the allegro moderato in C minor echoes Macheath's “Call from the Grave” and Polly's “Pirate Jenny,” “while the continued commitment to the minor mode reinforces the idea that in truth no one has been saved – because the world remains poor and man remains wicked” (157). However, Weill and Brecht save us from the idea that we are condemned to an explosion of dominant seventh12 harmony. The dominant seventh is commonly used by composers, especially jazz ones, to destabilize the triad before (usually) resolving it with a major chord.13 This progression reminds the audience of the previous scene: tension and trepidation (as illustrated by the dominant seventh chord ) followed by release and freedom (as illustrated by the resolution of the dominant/tonic chord). Here, Macheath's experience of being delivered from the gallows is played out both musically and thematically for the audience.14 Furthermore, the question posed in the second ending: "What keeps humanity alive?" is slightly distorted to say, “What will keep humanity alive?” The answer is here in the final statement released by the entire company: «Injustice must be spared from persecution: it will soon freeze to death, for it is cold» (3PO 79). The music here, although a parody, is also "distinctly hymnic...from the piously relaxed melody to the organ-like orchestration" (Ferran 19). These four lines remind the audience to “track down the injustice” (Blitzstein), but that it too shall pass. The implication here, however, is that the poor will freeze to death long before injustice does, so they had better do something about their situation before it's too late. The music here is reminiscent of many of Bach's cantatas, in which “solos alternated with choral figures and the dialogue was dressed in recitative” (Hirsch 51). Manheim and Willett's translation has no trace of an epilogue; however, Blitzstein's version brings back the street singer, who repeats the opening melody of "Mack the Knife". This shot brings the audience back to reality: the beggars disappear into the shadows while the street singer laments that "we divide those who are in the darkness from those who walk in the light" (Blitzstein). In typical Brechtian form, the final lines are a challenge to the audience. This denies them a final resolution and, therefore, catharsis. As Brecht wrote, this gives the end of the play a sense of “consequencelessness” (qtd. in Ferran, 20), since the final message of the play is the one that moves the audience to action. After its success (from the 1928 opening to current productions), it still appears that the bourgeois Berlin audience of 1928 satirized by Brecht and Weill either missed the opera's satirical gesture or enjoyed it, using the opera to justify their own corruption. The criticism of capitalism in the Threepenny Opera became profitable,15 e.