This week we chat with Matthew Caffoe of Mashed Theatre about which of life's truths can be gleaned from Berthold Brecht’s many-times-adapted classic musical/opera - The Threepenny Opera!According to critic and musicologist Hans Keller, the work is "the weightiest possible lowbrow opera for highbrows and the most full-blooded highbrow musical for lowbrows".The Weill authority Stephen Hinton notes that "generic ambiguity is a key to the work’s enduring success", and points out the work's deliberate hybrid status:For Weill [The Threepenny Opera] was not just ‘the most consistent reaction to [Richard] Wagner’; it also marked a positive step towards an operatic reform. By explicitly and implicitly shunning the more earnest traditions of the opera house, Weill created a mixed form which incorporated spoken theatre and popular musical idioms. Parody of operatic convention – of Romantic lyricism and happy endings – constitutes a central device.- FURTHER READING -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Threepenny_Operahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brechthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beggar%27s_Operahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Villonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Weillhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_the_Knifehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Keeps_Mankind_Alive%3Fhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021818/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055932/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6846238/https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-threepenny-opera-original-cast/185978358https://open.spotify.com/album/5M2MsnDwIWbaCXSxPw4OcxLike us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon!Email us: [email protected] our home on the web thatsnotcanonproductions.comOur theme song and interstitial music all by the one and only Benedict Braxton Smith. Find out more about him at www.benedictbraxtonsmith.com Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/musicals-taught-me-everything-i-know. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/musicals-taught-me-everything-i-know. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ver todos los episodios