Review: Kerjäläisooppera

BEGGARS ON THE STAGE OF GLOSSY SMILES.

Kari Heiskanen aptly finds an alienating satire in his interpretation of Brecht

Draped in black jewelry covers familiar from my great-grandmother’s Psalter
The handbook gives a starting hint of what to expect here
Helsinki City Theatre’s Brecht opera. Piety, or rather,
Hypocrisy is one of the dominant principles of the performance. It is strengthened by
especially the music of Kurt Weill . Pulled onto the stage
The brass band plays punctually, briskly and
Earnestly, always as needed.

The performance moves back and forth
from real reality to the 1920s and the indefinable
historical time, when the Briton John Gay recklessly took the
to mock at the expense of Italian opera. This basic work
comes to mind already in the title of the opera, to which Bertolt Brecht gave a new
the prefix “Dreigroschen”, an opera of three pennies.

Gay’s Beggar’s Opera had been rediscovered in Britain in the 1920s.
and immediately became a great success. Brecht’s partner
Elisabeth Hauptmann saw it, sensed the possibility of success and
translated it into German. The composer Weillin, who was known as a young man
atonal modernist, although not really trusted, but the result
exceeded all expectations. We also grabbed the edge of the race
In Finland, with the Swedish and Finnish performances following
each other.

Now, eight decades later, Brecht and Brechtianism
The interpretation includes a lot of wisdom, changes and contradictions.
After all, there is a whole wide range of plays in between, Marxist and Chinese
the pressure of the effects of theatre theory and, at its most extensive and threatening,
changes in the social significance of theatre art as a whole, and
submission to the licensing methodology of market forces.

Director Kari Heiskanen seems to have realised all this
triumphantly. He will create a beggar’s opera for the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre, which has been performed several times
have populated the seductive glossy smiles of musicals. The background is a familiar storyline from musicals: a girl child who rebels against her parents and runs away
marry a robber who is perceived as a competitor and a threat,
an argument about the same man, alcohol, promiscuity, and finally a prize,
amnesty, even nobility. But with a keen view and Weill’s
with the help of this overly sweet cake is glazed with alienating satire,
which reveals the difference between morality and matter, dream and fear,
between surface polish and deep emptiness.


The beggar’s opera must not be made too serious, even though it
The basic claim is the cruel proposition of poverty, greed and exploitation.
Trinity. Maybe that’s why the actual horror images are stylized
detached from realism through the use of posters, posters and songs.
level. Eroticism, religion and violence feed situations in which
The message works in the traditional ways of alienation: amazement,
Through quick shifting and a telling rhythm. People
meet each other like snapshots in a digital camera and at the same time
and in the expression allowed by the exact form.

This is theatre,
Theatre in the frame of every bare stage and bright lamps
laughs and cries about the strange way the world is going. In many small situations
conveys a hidden social meaning, which is reflected in the
The perpetrators could have learned a lesson.

The performance has a delightfully cast from whom
Singing is also fluent. From under the black corners of Oskari Katajisto’s eyes
the slithering Macheath makes a more believable conqueror of women than
a cruel bandit, and that is probably the intention. Heikki Sankari’s father’s
Peachum and Kari Mattila’s public servant paraffy
Chief Police Officer Brown does his role neatly, perhaps a little
Lukewarmly.

Especially women excel. Undeniably, for them, Weill is
composed the best bits. Riitta Havukainen’s
Mrs. Peachhum, who has been left in the dust of history, has a strong voice and
the character of being, Vuokko Hovatta gets to be in love and
even bitter nuances of the determined Polly, Ursula Salo builds
In the song of the pirate Jenny, defiantly the tragedy of life and – in many ways
sugar on the bottom – the quality of Laura Pyrrö’s singing voice has been
so that Lucy’s often omitted from the performance
aria, a demanding opera parody like no other.