The Threepenny Opera

Was there ever an internationally more popular and self-renewing work than Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's 1928 masterpiece, The Threepenny Opera? I call it “work,” because its precise genre remains debatable.

It began with Brecht's mistress, Elisabeth Hauptmann, translating John Gay's 1728 hit, The Beggar's Opera, into German. What was intended as a mere German version evolved into a free adaptation—an almost independent work of disputed authorship. How much of it was the devious Brecht, how much the devoted Hauptmann, how much Gay (incorporating bits of the original music)?

This issue need not concern us; more interesting is the question of quiddity. Opera? Surely not: too dialogue-oriented, frivolous, even deliberately anti-operatic. Operetta? Though matched in worldwide popularity only by a few works of Lehar and Offenbach, this is too wryly sardonic, its causticity way beyond that of Offenbach's gentle satire. Musical or musical comedy? Yes, in a way, although musically much more distinguished than the typical musical comedy. "An attempt at epic theater" is how its authors labeled it, meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with Brecht's windy theorizings.

But, by whatever label, the theatrical version of The Threepenny Opera is a masterwork. About the 1931 G. W. Pabst movie version, opinions remain more divided. Its impact, as film, however, is indisputable, so much so that the Nazis banned it. This contributed to the film's not having been widely seen, usually in poor prints, and latterly not at all.

All the more praise to Criterion for going back to the source for this new two-disc DVD release, based on a restoration negative in the Berlin Bundesarchiv, and boasting elaborate restoring of both image and sound. The resulting first disc is as sharp and spiffy as anything in today's movie houses.

The film takes various minor and major liberties with the stage work. Based on a rejected script by Brecht himself, the scenario is by three smart screenwriters, two of them Hungarians: Ladislaus Vajda, who had a subsequent Hollywood career, and Béla Balázs, a Marxist poet and playwright, best remembered for having been Bartók's librettist.

What emerged—rewrites, cuts, omitted songs and characters, a wholly new ending, all of which elicited lawsuits that Weill won and Brecht lost—was at any rate better than the originally intended mere filming of a stage production. Pabst was, after all, a fine director.

What are some of the film's chief merits? Proximity in time to the stage premiere, many of whose characteristics it incorporates. The presence of Lotte Lenya as the whore Jenny, whose acting, looks and voice (her early soprano before age thickened it) are eternalized. The participation of an early and late major Brechtian, Ernst Busch, here as the ballad singer.

Further, an altogether exemplary cast. Rudolf Forster remains the ideal Mack the Knife: elegant, charming, but also sinister—something ominous lurking under the suave seducer's exterior. Even if you don't know German, listen to the threat lurking under that debonair mellifluousness. The great rascal Peachum optimally incarnated by the immortal villain of the period, Fritz Rasp (interviews with him and Lenya are on the second disc). Also the pluperfect Polly of the lovely Carola Neher (wife of Brecht's friend and collaborator but also Brecht's mistress, a dedicated Communist later to perish in Russia).

Furthermore, two famed comedians of the period: Hermann Thimig as the cowardly vicar, and Paul Kemp as the funniest of Mack's henchmen. Also the Tiger Brown of Reinhold Schünzel, who went on to an American stage and screen career, and the Mrs. Peachum of Valeska Gert, a beloved nightclub comedienne.

The film simply reeks of the atmosphere German cinema of the Weimar period was famous for—think Metropolis, M and Caligari. The French version, which Pabst shot simultaneously, is on the second disc; it shows what harm too much Gallic charm and slickness can do. Even the French title is fancier: “Fourpenny Opera.”

The English subtitles are commendable for rhyme in the songs, but lose some of the German's ironies. The booklet essay, by Tony Rayns, is helpful until the last page, where it goes haywire with a theory of doubles. It also mistranslates beule (bruise) as “boil,” and misuses “fortuitous” for fortunate.

Changes not withstanding, the film gives a far better idea of Threepenny's pleasures and importance than such unfortunate Broadway revivals as those starring Sting (1989) and Alan Cumming (2006), which don't even quality as halfpenny.