Mahagonny is one of my two favorite operas (care to guess the other?), but it’s damned hard to find a well-sung performance (with opera singers, not Broadway divas) without cuts. This performance from Madrid comes very close, although why they chose to perform it in English (in a kind of messy translation) is anyone's guess.

Missing are the “pretty boy” verse of “Alabama Song,” a fairly large chunk of the whorehouse scene, and no place was found for the “Kraniche-Duett” (alright: in the score it’s marked as optional and can fit dramatically in any of the three acts). The star here is Christopher Vetris, who performs Jimmy with a sweet and true Heldentenor. Elzbieta Szmytka has a rather unstable voice and sings with a Polish accent, but at least she manages the trills in “Alabama Song” (I’ll bet you didn’t know there were trills in the score). The supporting cast is superb, especially Jane Henschel and Willard White.

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