This commission was the beginning of Weill's collaboration with the playwright, Bertholt Brecht, which produced, in the first place, the Mahagonny Songspiel, a setting of poems by Brecht which later became the full-scale opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, in 1930. The partnership, in fact, lasted only three years but it produced the works for which Weill is best remembered. The Threepenny Opera had its premiere in Berlin in 1928 to tremen-dous acclaim, with Lotte...