With these and other statements, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera has been provoking audiences since its premiere in Berlin in 1928. With a mixture of provocative, often discordant music, many elements of popular music of the 1920s, many parodies of classical opera and a casually told story, it is an unprecedented sensation: social cynicism, provocatively presented through entertainment theatre. The story of criminals who hold the whole system together, of a society based on such a system: "For what does man live on? Man lives by iniquity alone!" A battle of all against all. Treachery, lies, deceit, ambush, and a little love. With music.
The success of 1928 is reason enough to stage the famous work anew. But how? How do you re-present the play, make it interesting for today's generation? Do you stage it in a "modern" way without losing the old character? Or has the Threepenny Opera already been interpreted, analysed, staged and criticised too often? Something new was needed.
Such as a co-operation between music and art students from the University of Oldenburg and music students from Towson University in Baltimore, USA. The novelty is the plan for a bilingual performance: English - German. The Americans work hard on the German lyrics, while the Oldenburg students spend days cramming the English dialogue. But not with pen and paper and an American or German teacher as in the past - but using modern technology. Via Skype, a programme for video telephony on the Internet, the students sit here in Oldenburg and far away in Towson armed with headsets, cameras and their textbooks in front of their laptops and recite the lines of the song or text to each other. Because lines like "And the shark, he has teeth, and he wears them on his face. And Macheath, he's got a knife, but you can't see the knife" require some practice not only for the Germans, but especially for the Americans - don't forget the "r" that needs to be rolled.
The ensemble in Towson One is guaranteed: whether in the shadow image of a "dead man on the beach" or with twenty "whores", both male and female, strolling across the university stage - fun is guaranteed. On command, a student slips back and forth between the role of a beggar, a policeman or a whore, depending on what is needed at the time. With full physical commitment and the desired seriousness of purpose.
Brecht and Weill take centre stage. Weill... - a German or an American composer? A minor point of contention between the German and American students, but that won't be the only one in a production like this. After all, five teachers and 51 students have to agree on a common concept. Be it with regard to the costumes, the lighting effects, the singing style or the acting.
The performances from 27 to 29 May in Oldenburg and from 30 September to 2 October in Towson will take place in mixed groups: Americans and Germans will be on stage together. We will then see exactly what it looks like when, for example, a German Macheath plays the love scene with an American Polly. But there is still a lot of work to be done before then. Of course, the scenes have to be rehearsed exactly identically, after all, the actors should be able to swap at will without having to spend weeks rehearsing together.
In addition to the challenge of this co-operation, the students from Oldenburg and Towson are also faced with the appeal of Brecht's material and Weill's music. One wonders again and again: Is the Threepenny Opera outdated? Or does the unique music and the "moral of the story", the criticism of society, still find its way into the minds of audiences today? Is this Brechtian pessimism about the world old-fashioned and out of touch with reality, or is it clearer than desired? Written shortly before the global economic crisis of 1929, the Threepenny Opera is perhaps more relevant today than ever before. Because: "The world is poor, man is bad. Unfortunately, I'm right about that!"

Maria Ostermann The Oldenburg group with their American colleagues.