Music by Kurt Weill, Text by Bertolt Brecht.
Presented under license from European American Music Distributors Company, on behalf of The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc.
By arrangement with UNIVERSAL EDITION AG, Vienna, www.universaledition.com
Composed by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Giovacchino Forzano
Stage direction by Jane Davidson
Musical direction by Shauna Beesley (Das Kleine Mahagonny) and Andrea Katz (Suor Angelica)
Two stunning short operas, written less than a decade apart are highly contrasting musical and theatrical works that reveal the often-challenging ways in which humans behave towards one another. This project showcases singers on the Master of Music (Opera Performance) course, with supporting roles from Honours and Undergraduate Voice cohorts.
Mahagonny Songspiel or Das Kleine Mahagonny (The Little Mahagonny)
This short work is a scenic cantata that was the first collaboration between German composer Kurt Weill and theatre maker Bertolt Brecht, completed in 1927. It served as a precursor to the full-length opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), 1930. A skeletal story emerges through a series of songs that depict the journey of several figures to the fictional, hedonistic "paradise" city of Mahagonny that they come to regard as hell. The text offers a cynical commentary of capitalism and the decay of social morals. The music melds jazz, ragtime and cabaret influences, the songs alternating in German and English languages and including the original appearances of the iconic Alabama Song and Benares Song.
Suor Angelica
This opera was composed by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano and is the second of the composer’s one-act operas known as Il trittico (The triptych) which had its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1918. Originally set in 17th-century Italy, the story centres around life in a convent. Angelica, of noble birth, has been placed in the convent for having an illegitimate child. After seven years as a nun, Angelica’s estranged aunt, the Princess, visits to demand that she renounces her inheritance for her younger sister's marriage. Desperate for news, Angelica asks about her son. The aunt bluntly reveals the child died of a fever two years prior. Devastated, Angelica signs over her inheritance, and decides to end her own life in order to join her son in heaven.
Run Time
This production will run for approximately 1 hour 50 minutes with a 15 minute interval.
Content Warnings
This performance includes flashing lights, haze and non-graphic, stylised depictions of suicide, gun violence, forced adoption, and themes relating to religious institutions.
24th Mar 2026
Type: Graduation Show
School: Melbourne Conservatorium of Music
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