Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

A rough-hewn logger named Jimmy Mahoney wanders into Mahagonny, a boomtown where indulgence and commerce run the show and conventional rules are optional. He falls in with Jenny, a streetwise woman who sees opportunity in him, and they cross paths with the scheming Begbick and the moralizing Trinity Moses. The city’s loose morals and frantic partying set the stage for a collision between desire and the cold calculus of money. As fortunes shift and alliances fracture, Jimmy’s fortunes unravel and he is put on trial under the town’s harsh ordinances, showing how a place built to satisfy appetite can turn ruthless when profit is threatened.

This film version was released in 1979, directed for the screen by Brian Large and drawn from the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht opera. It preserves John Dexter’s Metropolitan Opera staging and features James Levine’s conducting, translating a notable stage production into a cinematic performance.

As a filmed opera aimed at opera and theater audiences, it did not register as a mainstream box office phenomenon. Its circulation was mainly through opera venues, broadcast, and later recordings, so it remained a specialized offering rather than a commercial blockbuster.

The production left an imprint on opera lovers, in part because it captured Astrid Varnay in her final Metropolitan Opera appearances and showcased Teresa Stratas, Richard Cassilly, and Cornell MacNeil in demanding roles. For students of Brecht and Weill it has been a reference point when people discuss staged opera on film, noted for its bold theatricality and for preserving a historically significant Met presentation.

Critics and viewers tend to focus on the score’s wide stylistic range and Brechtian critique of capitalist excess, along with the performers’ intense delivery. Themes include the commodification of human relations, the corrosive effects of monetary obsession, and the ironic distance Brecht keeps between audience and spectacle, all underscored by music that shifts from the jazzy to the brutal.