Review: Kerjäläisooppera

KARI HEISKANEN’S MASTERFUL DIRECTION

Bertolt Brecht’s The Beggar’s Opera, supported by the music of Kurt Weil , is one of the most inspiring contemporary plays in European dramatic art.

Director Kari Heiskanen has taken up the subject and built a handsome beggar’s opera on the main stage of the Helsinki City Theatre, which has been running on the big stage since the end of March.

Heiskanen has had the opportunity to work with a skillfully well-singing group of actors. The ensemble is crowned by a nine-piece orchestra. Live music doubles the art experience.


Katariina Kirjavainen’s minimalist set design and Maija Pekkanen’s expressive, adaptable and sumptuous costumes support the message that Heiskanen has emphasized in her direction. Greed is a primal human trait that he cannot contain. Greed strikes, whether it is in the clothes of the beggar king, Mr. Peachum (Heikki Sankari), Mrs. Peachum (Riitta Havukainen), Puukko-Mackie (Oskari Katajisto) and his wives (Vuokko Hovatta, Laura Pyrrö and Ursula Salo) or a member of his gang. The women and the beggars will not fail to grab a friend if the opportunity allows.

The viewer can safely sink into their seats, as Heiskanen’s directing work and the skills of a consistent cast of actors can be trusted. In the theatre, this kind of delicacy is too rare for us. The beggar’s opera retains the awareness of a performance in which the story is told to the audience specifically on stage. A few set assistants marching onto the stage to bring and take chairs fit into a Brechtian play. The viewer feels like they are watching a play – a play about the weaknesses of a real person.

The gang of Puukko-Mackies includes a group of friends from the underworld, including the slob Myntti-Matthias (Jyrki Kovaleff) These flatterers and supporters of the “good brother” we meet busy not only from the underworld of the play.

The intelligence of the beggar’s opera is unparalleled here as well: the play becomes reality.

The delicacies of Kari Heiskanen’s direction are worth seeing, as such a sharp beggar’s opera is rarely set up for viewing.