Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 2

by Bertolt Brecht

  A ‘first sketch’ for the opera, published in the magazine Das neue Forum in 1957/58, would appear to list the texts for Caspar Neher’s projected scene titles in the Songspiel, as the Baden-Baden version was termed. They run: ‘I. The great cities in our day are full of people who do not like it there. 2. So get away to Mahagonny, the gold town situated on the shores of consolation far from the rush of the world. 3. Here in Mahagonny life is lovely. 4. But even in Mahagonny there are moments of nausea, helplessness and despair. 5. The men of Mahagonny are heard replying to God’s inquiries as to the cause of their sinful life. 6. Lovely Mahagonny crumbles to nothing before your eyes’. Although we have none of Brecht’s characteristic notes and schemes other than this to show how the opera was planned, the basis of the work is fairly clear. On the one hand there were the songs taken over from the Songspiel version, together with part of Mahagonny Song no. 4 and seven other pre-existing poems, which the collaborators now cut, changed and threaded together to make the backbone of the opera. On the other there was this new framework with its apocalyptic message deriving apparently from Brecht’s discarded plan for The Flood or Collapse of the Paradise City Miami, which originally had nothing directly to do with the Mahagonny myth. The result was the libretto script which is now in the archives of Universal-Edition, Weill’s publishers. This antedates not only the version which Brecht published in the Versuche in 1931, which is the basis for the Gesammelte Werke text which we reproduce, but also the piano score of 1929. It is entitled simply Mahagonny, ‘opera in 3 acts by Kurt Weill. Text by Bert Brecht’.

  This script gives the characters as Widow Leokadja Begbick, Fatty der Prokurist, Trinity Moses (identified as a bass), Jimmy Mahonney, Fresserjack (or Guzzlerjack), Sparbüchsenbilly (Piggy-Bank Billy), Alaskawolfjoe and Jenny Smith. Of these only Jimmy and Billy are taken over from the Songspiel, though the name Jenny occurs in a rough draft of a ‘Mahagoni’ song in one of Brecht’s notebooks of 1922-23. The piano score of 1929 amends Jimmy to Jim Mahoney (with the normal single ‘n’), drops Jenny’s surname and adds Tobby Higgins, noting that he can be doubled with Jack, Auden and Kallman in their translation improved on this by making Jenny’s name Jones (presumably because Jack or Jake is also named Smith) and Jimmy’s Gallagher (presumably because Māhŏnĕy with three syllables will not do for Anglo-Saxons, let alone Irishmen). Just about that time, however, Weill decided that ‘the use of American names … risks establishing a wholly false idea of Americanism, Wild West or suchlike’, so that with Brecht’s concurrence a note was added to the full score saying:

  In view of the fact that those amusements of man which can be had for money are always and everywhere the same, and since the amusement town of Mahagonny is thus international in the broadest sense, the names of the leading characters can be changed into the customary [i.e., local] forms at any given time. The following names are therefore recommended for German performances: Willy (for Fatty), Johann Ackermann (for Jim), Jakob Schmidt (for Jack O’Brien [actually the name of one of the world middleweight champions about whom Brecht wrote a poem in 1927]), Sparbüchsenheinrich (for Bill), Josef Lettner (for Joe).

  These German names are to be found in Versuche 2, where the work is described as ‘an attempt at epic opera, a depiction of mores’. However, Brecht now (see p. xxiv) made Ackermann Paul, not Johann, though he is always the latter in performance.

  The various incorporated poems, including the Mahagonny songs, will be given in full in the volume of Songs and Poems from Plays currently being prepared. They are, in brief:

  Alabama Song (scene 2)

  On the cities (scene 3)

  Mahagonny Song no. 4 (scene 3, refrain only)

  Mahagonny Song no. 1 (scene 4)

  The Johnny-doesn’t-want-to-be-human Song (scene 8)

  Against being deceived (scene 11 in our text, scene 20 in piano score)

  Blasphemy (scene 11)

  The Lovers (scene 14)

  Mahagonny Song no. 2 (scene 16)

  Tahiti (scene 16)

  Jenny’s Song (scene 16)

  Benares Song (scene 19 of piano score, later cut)

  Mahagonny Song no. 3 (scene 19)

  Poem on a Dead Man (scene 20)

  There was also a discarded ‘Chewing-gum Song’. How all these were treated in order to work them into the opera will be discussed in the notes on individual scenes which follow.

  These are based on a comparison of the typescript libretto (which bears no signs of correction or amendment by Brecht), the piano score (1929) and the final Versuche text of 1931, which has subsequently remained unchanged. Since Auden and Kallman’s translation of the opera was made from the piano score, we quote variant passages from the latter in their version. It can be found in its original form in Brecht: The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, edited by A. R. Braunmuller and published by David R. Godine, Boston 1976.

  2. THE OPERA: NOTES ON INDIVIDUAL SCENES

  Scene 1

  In the typescript and the piano score (and accordingly in the original Auden-Kallman version) the stage directions are as under. Note however that Auden-Kallman’s ‘screen’ is a mistranslation of Brecht’s Gardine or flimsy curtain hung from wires ‘not more than 2½ metres’ (i.e. about eight feet) above the stage.

  The place of the conventional curtain is taken by a small white screen suspended on both sides on metal wires about a yard above the stage. On this screen appear all the projections of the scene titles. As the music begins, a warrant for the arrest of Ladybird Begbick, Trinity Moses and Henry Wilson alias Fatty The Bookie, appears on the screen. The charges are: Robbery with Violence, Forgery and Fraud. Under this is printed: All Three are Fugitives from Justice. Their photographs then appear. Then, moving across this projection in red letters the title of the first scene: The Founding of the City of Mahagonny, otherwise known as Suckerville.

  The screen divides in the centre and opens inwards. Projection No. 1. appears on the backcloth: a desert landscape. A large, battered truck rolls on to the stage; the motor splutters and dies; the truck stops. Trinity Moses climbs out of the driver’s seat and peers under the hood; Fatty peers out from the back of the truck.

  The ‘As-You-Like-It Tavern’ (of A/K following the piano score) later became the ‘Rich Man’s Arms Hotel’. This solo by Begbick (starting on p. 174) was originally termed ‘Aria’ in the script. The ending of her immediately preceding speech (from ‘This is the spot’ to ‘settled’) was added by A/K and is not in the German texts, while ‘Girls for the asking’ is literally ‘Girls and boys’.

  Scene 2

  According to the piano score this is to be played before the half-height curtain (A/K’s ‘screen’). It consists of the Alabama Song originally written in English by Elisabeth Hauptmann and provided with a rudimentary tune by Brecht. The piano score omits the second verse, which originally had ‘girl’ rather than ‘boy’ throughout but was changed on the script and on Weill’s MS score. We have followed the later reading, which has been observed ever since, and disregarded A/K’s amendment of ‘pretty boy’ to ‘Mister Right’ and of ‘boys’ in the penultimate line of this verse to ‘misters’.

  Scene 3

  In the typescript there was to be an opening projection ‘showing a view of the city of New York and also the photographs of a lot of men’. In the piano score the former was amended to literally ‘a city of millions’. The initial four-line chorus was published as a poem in Simplicissimus for 6 September 1927 under the title ‘On the Cities’; later Brecht wanted to take it into the Devotions. The duet by Fatty and Moses which follows, according to the Weill-Neher ‘Suggestions’, was to be sung into a microphone. With ‘But once you puff’ (p. 177) it takes up the refrain of Mahagonny Song no. 4.

  Scene 4

  Is again performed before the half-curtain, and consists of Mahagonny Song no. 1.

  Scene 5

  The script has Trinity Moses putting up pictures of nudes, not simply of ‘girls’ (p. 181). It calls Jenny’s song ‘Have y
ou thought at all’ (p. 182) her ‘Arietta’ and words it slightly differently; thus in the verse starting ‘Jenny Jones from Oklahoma’ the third line reads ‘I have been in the cold cities’. Doubtless seeing some inconsistency with the earlier ‘My home is Havana’ A/K give the alternatives ‘Jenny Jones. Havana, Cuba’ and ‘Jenny Jones. From Havana’ – the latter as part of a spoken quatrain to run on:

  I got here just about nine weeks ago.

  I used to live in the big cities down there.

  I do anything that’s asked of me.

  Also in the script the solo and chorus following straight on from there, starting ‘I know you Jimmies, Jimmies, Jimmies from Alaska well’ is separated off and headed ‘Song’, with the six girls joining in after ‘what Mahagonny has to sell’. All this is given its present wording in the piano score, which has a different setting of the Arietta from that now used. Weill subsequently rewrote this song for Lotte Lenya to sing in the Berlin production of 1931.

  Scene 6

  Script and piano score specify that this is to be played before the half-curtain, on which is projected a plan of the city.

  Scene 7

  According to Drew the Tavern’s name was changed to Hotel zum Reichen Mann (or The Rich Man’s Arms) a few weeks before the Leipzig premiere.

  The script divides Begbick’s opening speech into verse lines and makes it end after ‘I saw them there’ with ‘They’re taking their money away with them!’. In her cantabile solo starting ‘I too was once’ (p. 187) instead of ‘And it was love’ the script has ‘And it was the future’.

  Scene 8

  In script and piano score this starts with the same projection as scene 5. Jim’s solo ‘I think I will eat my old felt hat’ (p. 189) is headed ‘Song’ on the script and derives from an earlier ‘Johnny-willkeinmenschsein Song’ which evidently antedates the naming of the characters. It is said by Werner Otto to derive from an unidentified record of a song in English. It had a melody by Brecht, a middle verse which went:

  I think I had better get rid of my woman

  I think she and I are through.

  And why should a man be stuck with his woman

  When he’s stuck for money too?

  – and a longer refrain, taking in all that follows the present second (Arkansas) verse from ‘You’ve learned’ right down to ‘What is it man was born for?’ In script, piano score and A/K version this follows each of the two verses.

  Scene 9

  The script introduces this scene by a title in ‘giant flaming letters’ saying ‘SENSATION!’ In our version A/K have added extensively to the inscriptions specified in the stage direction, and also signed each of them with Begbick’s initials. Following the piano score they include a lot of repetition (‘Hold me, hold me back! Hold me, hold me back! Hold me, hold me back’ etc.) which the published texts dispense with and which we have accordingly cut. We have also followed Brecht in going straight into Jim’s ‘Deep in the woods’ solo and omitting Jake’s heartfelt ‘This is the real immortal art!’ which follows the introductory piano solo (derived from ‘The Maiden’s Prayer’) in A/K and the piano score.

  After ‘The rivers jammed with floating ice’ (p. 192) and Jim’s three lines following, the script has a different version of the rest of the scene, as follows:

  BEGBICK:

  If only those stupid idiots

  Would stay put in Alaska

  For all they want is to disturb

  Our peace, our concord.

  JENNY:

  Jimmy, listen to me

  And put your knife away

  BEGBICK:

  What is it you want?

  Catch a fish and be happy

  Smoke a cigar and forget

  Your crappy Alaska.

  THE GIRLS:

  Put your knife back in your belt again!

  CHORUS OF MEN:

  Quiet! Quiet!

  JAKE, JOE, BILL:

  Jimmy, put your knife away!

  Jimmy, be a gentleman!

  JIM:

  Hold me back

  Or something nasty’ll happen!

  CHORUS mocking:

  We know these Jimmies, Jimmies, Jimmies from Alaska well:

  They have it worse in winter than the dead have.

  But you get rich in hell. But you get rich in hell.

  JIM shouting:

  For there’s no life here!

  CHORUS general tumult:

  Throw him out!

  At this point the stage lights go out. Sudden deathly hush. On the background in big writing ‘Hurricane over Florida!!’ If possible to be followed by 160 feet of film with shots of typhoons.

  SINGLE VOICES:

  A hurricane!!

  A typhoon!!!

  A hurricane over Florida threatening Mahagonny!!!!!!

  The darkness lightens somewhat.

  CHORUS bursting forth:

  No! Not utter destruction!

  Our golden Joytown will be lost!

  For the raging storm hangs over the mountains:

  We shall die, drown in the waters of death.

  O is there no wall to shelter us now?

  O is there no cavern which will hide us?

  Chorus rushes out. Begbick, Moses, Fatty and Jim remain.

  MOSES:

  Lock the doors!

  Take the money to the cellar.

  BEGBICK:

  Oh, don’t bother

  It doesn’t matter.

  Jim laughs.

  Scene 10

  The script accordingly makes our scene 10 the concluding part of the previous scene. The piano score separates it off exactly as now, except that there is a note soon after the second projection, saying ‘Thereafter typhoon scenes can be shown, using scenic or filmic means: storms, water, collapsing buildings, men and animals fleeing etc.’.

  Scene 11 [10 in script]

  Script locates this ‘Inside the As-You-Like-It Tavern’ as in scene 7. It omits Jenny’s repeat of ‘O moon of Alabama’ (p. 195) which is now sung over the top of Jake’s solo, give this solo to the trio Jake-Joe-Bill, and shortens it, omitting the last line. Then after Begbick’s ‘So you think I was wrong to forbid anything’ (p. 200) Jim’s answer (in verse) is:

  Yes. Now I am cheerful

  I would rather smash up your chairs

  And your lamp

  And your glasses must be destroyed.

  He does so.

  The hurricane will not pay you for them

  But I will.

  Here.

  Take this.

  Begbick’s answer was then addressed to him only and to be sung on top of a repeat of ‘We need no raging hurricane’ etc. by the other three men. The script also provides a different ending to the scene after Jim’s four lines starting ‘You are free, I say, if you dare’ (p. 201), cutting straight from ‘If it’s prohibited’ to his repeat of ‘As you make your bed’ six lines later. There is then no chorus, and Jenny says:

  Be quiet, boys

  If they hear us we’ll be lynched.

  JIM: No, we’re going to stop being quiet from now on.

  He smashes the boards announcing prohibitions.

  Lights dim down. Projection at the back: Mahagonny on the point of destruction, illuminated with blood-red rays. From the darkness we hear the chorus of Mahagonnyites, interrupted by the subversive songs of Jimmy and his friends: let each one do just what be likes, etc. The ‘As you make your bed’ song becomes increasingly dominant, and is eventually taken up by the entire chorus. The singing stops, the projection disappears, till all that can be seen in the background is a geographical sketch with an arrow slowly approaching Mahagonny, showing the hurricane’s path.

  The piano score has the scene as now, except that it puts Jim’s solo ‘Dreams have all one ending’ (p. 198) in the last scene but one, just before his execution. This was also followed by Auden/Kallman. The present placing of the song seems to have been decided without Weill’s agreement.

  This song comes fr
om a poem of about 1920 which had been included in the Devotions under the title ‘Against Deception’ but was earlier called ‘Lucifer’s Evening Song’. Jim’s other solo which succeeds this in our text (‘If you see a thing’, p. 199) forms part of the ‘Reader for Those Who Live in Cities’ cycle of 1926-27, and was published as such in 1960 under the title ‘Blasphemy’.

  Scene 12 [11 in script]

  This opens the second Act of the opera (see script and piano score). In the script the stage directions begin as now, but the first place mentioned is not the seemingly fictitious Atsena but Miami. The Auden-Kallman version groups the three loudspeaker announcements thus:

  LOUDSPEAKER:

  The hurricane is now approaching Atsena at a speed of one hundred and twenty miles an hour. In Pensacola, eleven thousand are reported dead or missing.

  The hurricane has reached Atsena. Atsena totally destroyed.

  The hurricane is making straight for Mahagonny. It is now only three minutes away.

  Then as our text, except that the word ‘Loudspeaker’ is omitted.

  Scene 13 [12 in script]

  The script puts the opening chorus as part of the preceding scene, but introduces it by the same projected titles as now. It is however not sung by the chorus proper but by the four friends, in front of the half-curtain. The piano score has it as now, but with the wording bowdlerised to read ‘Zweitens kommt die Liebe dran’, instead of ‘Zweitens kommt der Liebesakt’. Auden/Kallman follow the former reading. The two musicians of Brecht’s stage direction are there to play zither and bandoneon, a type of accordion, in the accompaniment to Jake’s solo.