#Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

[droughtofapathy]

The Gilded Age's Broadway Divas: Dorothy Scott (Audra McDonald)

As Peggy Scott's pianist mother, Dorothy isn't afraid to give her husband a piece of her mind at every opportunity. Though enmeshed in bettering Black society up north, she worries for her daughter's safety down south. As she should.

Here she is boys, here she is world, the one you've all been waiting for. Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald. *The* Broadway Diva. Our reigning queen. Our legend. Our great soprano. Audra has won more Tony Awards for performance than any other actor, and is the only one to have an award in each of the four competitive categories for which she is eligible (Best Leading Actress in a Play/Musical, Best Featured Actress in a Play/Musical). As such, she is one of three theatre greats to have nominations across said categories: the others being the late greats Jan Maxwell and Angela Lansbury. With ten nominations in total, she is tied with Julie Harris and Chita Rivera for most performance nominations and will certainly surpass them the next time she comes to Broadway.

Audra McDonald's repertoire is so vast that this post became the hardest to narrow down. I have elected to highlight a little of everything: songs from shows that deserve a little more love here on Tumblr, Audra favorites, obscure gems, etc.

#1: "The Glamorous Life," Sondheim's 80th Birthday Celebration (2010)

We have no choice but to start with Sondheim. The third of six performers in the iconic Ladies in Red segment of the Sondheim 80th Birthday Concert, Audra takes on this exquisite A Little Night Music number sung by the teenaged Frederika in the movie version (we don't talk about it).

Among Sondheim standards such as "The Ladies Who Lunch" (Patti LuPone) and "Losing My Mind" (Marin Mazzie), some considered the inclusion of this number a little misplaced. I adore it.

According to the Word of God (Donna Murphy), some of the Ladies in Red were being sewed or even taped into their dresses just minutes before taking the stage.

#2: Lady Day at Emmerson's Bar and Grill (2014)

Though this particular show features music throughout and has a phenomenal cast album, it is classified as a "play with music," thus Audra was able to win her multi-record-breaking Tony in 2014. She plays the iconic Billie Holiday in 1959 at the tail end of her career. Here, she performs in a run-down nightclub and grows increasingly drunk and demoralized throughout the evening. It is an incredible piece of both singing and acting.

#3: "As You Make Your Bed," Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (2007)

Though the costume is something I feel we should all bear witness to, Audra's demonstration of her full operatic range adds another layer of excellence. A Weill and Brecht collaboration, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny was first performed in 1930. This clip is from the 2007 Los Angeles Opera production starring Audra and Patti LuPone. Audra plays Jenny Smith, "a whore." The production was recorded for PBS's Great Productions and won two Grammy Awards.

Truly, is there anything Audra can't do?

#4: "Wheels of a Dream," Ragtime Reunion (2023)

Ragtime. Oh, Ragtime. That we live in a world where Ahrens and Flaherty's magnum opus lost Best Musical to The Lion King is my villain origin story. Natasha Richardson (Cabaret) beating out Marin Mazzie for Leading Actress is something I have to accept, but this? In 1998, Ragtime won Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Orchestrations, and Best Featured Actress for Audra McDonald's glorious Sarah. Sarah is a young woman at the turn of the century who has a baby with Brian Stokes Mitchell's (Broadway's Leading Man) Coalhouse Walker, and is taken in by Mother (Marin Mazzie), an upper-class white woman with no name after she is caught having partially buried the living child in Mother's yard. It is a masterpiece of musical talent with a breathtaking score and story.

This role won Audra her third Tony in the span of five years. Listening to Audra and Stokes reunite may well be the closest you ever get to hearing divinity. I implore you to seek out the full original cast album.

A reunion concert was planned for April 2020, but was postponed until this past year with Kelli O'Hara stepping in for the late Marin Mazzie as Mother. The concert was done as a benefit for the Entertainment Community Fund, and dedicated in memory of Marin, who passed away in 2018 from ovarian cancer, book-writer Terrence McNally who died of COVID complications in 2020 (lung cancer), and director Frank Galati, who died in 2023, also of cancer complications.

#5: Master Class (1995)

Master Class is yet another Terrence McNally work, this one a play depicting a fictionalized master class given by opera singer Maria Callas towards the end of her life. Audra, as Sharon, takes the part of her student, the second soprano. This play won Audra her second Tony, and garnered a Tony for the brilliant leading actress Zoe Caldwell, whom Audra partially named her firstborn child after some years later. Her daughter's middle name is in honor of Audra's other close friend, the late Madeline Kahn, who like Marin Mazzie, died of ovarian cancer at 57, the same age, though many years prior.

LINK TO MASTERPOST

[if-only-angels-could-prevail]

I bartended showtunes night and they fucking showed Audra McDonald in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny on the TVs (not even Alabama Song, the Jimmy one) and everyone was like “omg this is so good what is this from” and talking about Audra and I shouted “FREE SHOT TO ANYONE WHO CAN NAME WHAT THIS IS FROM!” and everyone talked amongst themselves until someone in the back finally got it right (he got a green tea shot)

[lboogie1906]

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee (born Measha Gosman; June 28, 1977) is a Canadian soprano who performs both as an opera singer and concert artist. She has performed internationally and won numerous awards. Her recordings of both classical and popular music have received awards.

She played the lead in the premiere of the opera Beatrice Chancy by James Rolfe and George Elliott Clarke.

She has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director Geoffrey Moull, National Arts Centre Orchestra under the direction of Pinchas Zukerman, and at Roy Thomson Hall.

She has performed internationally, in the US, Germany, and other nations. She was in Elektra, Dead Man Walking, and Turandot with the Cincinnati Opera. She has performed the Verdi Requiem with Sir Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as well as with Helmuth Rilling at the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn.

She was a soloist in recording Songs of Innocence and Experience, which won three Grammy awards, including Best Classical Album.

She was a new performer at the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, singing in the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ medley and closing the show with “Ave Maria”.

She has performed in the US with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, in their performance of Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time.

She performed the role of Jenny in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in Madrid’s Teatro Real.

She performed the Olympic Hymn at the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Games. She performed an arrangement of the English-sung version of the hymn in English and French to reflect Canada’s official languages.

She married Markus Brügger (1999-2018). They have two sons. She married jazz guitarist Steve Lee (2021). #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[grinchwrapsupreme]

There's a song used in the movie The World's End, final instalment of the Cornetto Trilogy, called Alabama Song (or sometimes Moon of Alabama) as performed by the band The Doors in 1967 and it kills me I have no excuse ever to tell people it's a cover of a song from a 1930's opera called The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny about a city built in the desert for the express purpose of gambling and prostitution and the subsequent arrest and trial of one of their patrons, and was composed by Kurt Weill and written by playwright Bertolt Brecht, a German playwright who wrote a lot of crazy shit and who theatre students almost universally cannot stand

[masterblackoak]

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny: Alabama-Song

[contemporaryclassicalfan]

Dutch National Opera hits the bullseye with dazzling Mahagonny

Menacingly, choir, soloists and extras march towards us, spitting in our faces: ‘Can’t help ourselves and you and no-one!’ The well-filled Amsterdam Music Theatre erupts in ovational applause, with loud cheers and jubilation. Not one boo disturbs the overall euphoria after the premiere of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) by composer Kurt Weill and…

[redorangman]

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny: Alabama-Song

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Month of New Operatic Works, Round 2, #2: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Met, 1979): Reactions, Part I

Time to dive back into my Weill-related opera-loving roots with watching this for the first time @sweatershowgirl​

hahahahahahahaha

minimalism before it was cool at the Met

(also did John Dexter direct EVERYTHING at the Met in the 70s because it sure seems like it)

well that works also this music bops

true

I feel like movie soundtracks copied the strings in this part

Teresa Stratas *heart eyes* also I know this song! and it bops

she looks like if Annie of musical fame got dropped in the 70s and grew up some and she sounds like a queen

thanks for conveniently giving us the info

I mean...why would anyone want to live in the sewers

this could take place in 2021 and no one would bat an eye

jazz plus opera equals double the slap

now that is a Look

kinda cringe tbh

see she’s even got the red dress the look comparison still stands

*John Mulaney voice* and then she did

yeah I’m not an expert but I feel like twenty bucks is overpriced for a glass of whiskey

this scene is a bit uncomfortable

that’s a you problem

and Begbick is having a TIME of it

welp

freeform a cappella guys’ ensembles have their own vibe

well I would but you are a tenor so it’s unlikely you would listen

sometimes that’s just such a mood

Standard Tenor Overreaction Time

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn

uh oh

this oddly slaps

honestly? probably true

so he’s basically suggesting the Purge

Astrid Varnay is such a legend

well fuck

congrats, I guess???

why do I feel like this will backfire on you later

y’all this is super cool

[michael-weinstein]

am i the only one who find similarites between Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and the l’manburg arc

[monotonous-minutia]

this is such a mood though

[devilishlyoperatic]

I am utterly OBSESSED with the idea of directing a production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny using my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

Industrial city that rose out of nowhere in the American south around the turn of the century? Check.

Long history of capitalist corruption in all levels of government? Check.

Very bad weather during the warm months? Check.

Racial injustice that, while not present in the text of the opera in on a passing reading in the text, would do a lot to hit the themes of the libretto home and render the opera even more culturally relevant? Check.

An opportunity to use the world’s largest cast iron statue (that happens to be pantsless) to give new and hilarious meaning to the song “Moon of Alabama?” Check-a-fuckin’-roo.

Opera companies, hire me

[lboogie1906]

Audra Ann McDonald (born July 3, 1970) is an actress and singer. Known for her work on the Broadway stage, she has won six Tony Awards, more performance wins than any other actor, and is the only person to win all four acting categories. She has performed in musicals, operas, and dramas such as A Moon for the Misbegotten, 110 in the Shade, Carousel, Ragtime, Master Class, and Porgy and Bess.

She has performed in staged operas with the Houston Grand Opera and the Los Angeles Opera and concerts with symphony orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic. Her recording of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with the Los Angeles Opera won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Album and the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. She maintains an active concert and recording career throughout the US. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

She portrayed Dr. Naomi Bennett in Private Practice. She portrayed the character of Liz Lawrence in The Good Wife, a role that she reprises in The Good Fight; she received two Critics Choice Award nominations for her performance. She performed the role of Mother Superior in The Sound of Music Live! She has twice been nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her portrayals of Susie Monahan in Witopposite Emma Thompson and her performance of Ruth Younger in A Raisin in the Sun. She was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill in which she portrayed jazz legend Billie Holiday. She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Program for her work hosting the program Live from Lincoln Center.

She is known for her portrayals of Maureen in Ricki and the Flash, Madame de Garderobe in Beauty and the Beast, and Barbara Siggers Franklin in Respect She has been nominated seven times for the NAACP Image Awards for her work in television and film. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[odk-2]

Lotte Lenya and The Three Admirals - Alabama Song (1930) (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny / Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) Bertolt Brecht / Kurt Weill from "Kurt Weill: Die Dreigroschenoper (Berlin, 1930)"         "Kurt Weill: Threepenny Opera Dreigroschenoper Berlin 1930          Songs & Chanson"           (2017)

Lotte Lenya

*** ***

The Doors - Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) (1967): https://tmblr.co/ZoHQpk1xXYi6u

[jempai]

how is she so good 

[dreaming-about-the-dead]

This Saturday was the last presentation of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, the play my classroom chose to end our last semester of teather college. And damn I have so many things to say about this incredibly hard journey.

When we first decided which play we were going to make, I was beyond elated to be part of Mahagonny. My enthusiasm only grew when I discovered I would be playing the part of Widow Begbick, the same role Patti LuPone played when she herself was part of this opera written by Bertolt Brecht. At the same time I was ecstatic, I was also nervous; this role was like a huge weight of responsibility on my shoulders. How could I ever play a role Patti LuPone played? How could I be as good as her? Never. I figured I had to create Leokadja Begbick my way.

And that's what I did; and through months of rehearsal and creative work a snake was born. My Begbick was alive, and she slithered through my veins, cold as ice and venomous as the deadliest rattlesnake. Her poison fueled my being and she gave me the power I needed to get through 5 gigs in high heels and an embroidered shirt so heavy I kept sweating profusely whenever I put that on.

As I put my costume and make-up I was no longer Giovanna, the insecure, introverted and absent girl. I was Leokadja Begbick, a woman; a woman so torn by her life that she became an indestructible shell of herself, the thickest skin of a snake, and the will to destroy everything that came her way. I was fuelled by poison, hate and selfishness. And let me tell you, it was the most gratifying feeling I've ever felt in a long time.

I've played older, cold women before, but never someone as deprived of goodness and morals as Begbick. Being an actress is great because of things like that. You can feel like a piece of shit when you're being just yourself, but when you allow a character to take control of your body, you're not yourself anymore, and for a moment you can even forget how insecure, shitty or fragile you feel. I like to think the characters I play to be my friends, and to some extent, they all could get along with me without any troubles. But would Begbick be my friend if she met me?

No, she wouldn't. She would step on me the moment she saw how insecure I am. She would destroy me and probably prostitute me without even thinking twice. And I took that in consideration when I molded her character. And, to be honest, I think she was the best character I've ever did in a long time.

Here's a picture of me playing one of my favorite scenes in the play; the hurricane. That was the moment I poured all my spite and hatred towards every human being sitting in the audience, and that was the moment I felt this woman's poison in my veins the most intensely. I don't know if I'll miss Begbick of if I'm just so relieved to get rid of her. It's a love/hate relationship I guess.

Anyway, there was a picture I kept as my phone wallpaper since February because I knew looking at it would give me strength and the inspiration I needed to get through everything. And it's a picture of Patti LuPone, most specifically, this picture.

Now, this could go terribly wrong if I allowed it so, and sometimes it did. There were times when I looked at this picture and I all I wanted to do was cry, because I saw myself beneath her feet, unable to get up and subjugated to an extent I couldn't even do anything about it. There were times when I knew I would never get this role right, and I would only ashame myself and everyone else in my class. There were times when I looked at it and I imagined her lifting me up and slapping me to come to my senses and get my shit together, and I beamed with joy, because I knew I was doing the right thing. I'm glad to look at it now that everything is over and smile knowing that I did a good job. And I can even imagine Patti's Begbick giving me a cold nod of acknowledgement.

Every moment I spent waiting for the play to begin I prayed for two people: my grandmother, who's always with me on stage in the form of an earring, a necklace, or in this case, a snake brooch she had; and Patti LuPone, whom I thanked thoroughly for being my inspiration and my strength during these hard months. Without her, I don't know if I would be able to even get this character out of the script and into real life. I owe Leokadja Begbick to her, and in a way, I guess she would be proud of me.

I keep saying that I don't want to act anymore, and well, I guess I'm constantly lying to myself, because when I step in the stage that's when my soul is in peace. Those floorboards are my solace, as hard as they can be. That sacred place is my home. How could I ever deny my home?

Thank you, Leokadja Begbick for filling me with the power to get through it all.

Thank you grandma, for giving me luck and always be with me when I'm on the stage... I just wish you could be here with me.

Thank you Patti LuPone, for being my inspiration and my guidance to mold this character the right way; without you, my will to be part of this play would never exist.

Thank you Brecht, for being the badass writer and poet who wrote this amazing piece of work. You had no idea, but Mahagonny is the perfect portrait of my country's situation right now. The city you created is the city I'm living in today.

And lastly, thank you Dionysus, for allowing me to step into your sacred temple, thank you for sheltering my soul.