Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

(2 / 5)



My support for English National Opera goes back nearly two decades. I’ve loved the passion, the commitment to the art of opera and music making. With recent setbacks and issues, I still need to support the company, yet I have some doubts…

This is an odd choice, Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany would be the latest premiere from the company. With Weill’s love of all thing’s cabaret and Brecht lectures for the audiences…it’s an often-heady mix. Directed by Jamie Manton, this is a stripped back show, with Brechtian sensibilities, one which typically vexes.

I found there to be several issues, I think the English translation let’s it down, it should be in German for that acidic pout of clever-told-you-so storytelling. ENO’s commitment to opera in English has always been the gold standard, yet not everything works. The humungous Coliseum may have proven to be two large for the opera intimacy, within many moments of the first two acts.

The City of Mahogany comes about as dessert delivery workers can go no further with their toil. They choose to set up in the wasteland, creating a utopian idyll where everyone is equal, at a price. A strange band of characters including Jimmy MacIntyre and his lover Jenny Smith make the city their home, though flaws fixate and unpaid debts cause fatal flaws in the city’s ideals. This is where Brecht gets to shine with his annoying storytelling parables. There are no prisoners for this lucid narrative, less about sharp character development and more social and political, issues of the day, now seen with fresh eyes – today.

Weill’s score is highly eccentric. With the addition of banjo, acoustic guitar, an under used saxophone, (I think I heard pianola at one point) and other fun additions, I do stand by this being an opera if highly unconventional in its vocal delivery and orchestra fibres. Many merry Oompa moments and toe tapping bars should appease, yet this is not always the case. The first part of the night with act one and two conjoined, felt like a slog and the intermission after the first act would have been graceful respite. The third act remains the most ‘operatic’ as the story finally gets some heightened momentum with Jimmy MacIntyre’s execution for unpaid whiskey bills and other heinous acts. Story wise, that’s pretty much it!

The chorus and orchestra of ENO are always a thrill and under the baton of new music director André de Ridder, I think there is little to be worried about. The concerns lie with an arts council who have openly chosen to comprise the company base of over ninety years in London, with Manchester flutters for their own Brech-like agendas. You can see this in the sets of Milla Clarke, though ‘alienation’ as a proven point, the set back on this funding would slash many ideals. There is good singing from Danielle de Niese, Simon O’Neill, Elgan Llýr Thomas, Mark Le Brocq and more. Some eccentric dancers would add to the fray in often bizarre and comical ways. My only regret is that I just wish I’d enjoyed this screwball rarity much more.

Side note: I should be off to Hamburg later this week for Monsters Paradise, another German twist on the American dream, where Trump will fight Godzilla. Now that. Is. Entertainment….

It runs till 20th Feb 2026