Provocative assault on capitalism by Weill and Brecht roars to life

On March 9, 1930, a riot rocked the Neues Theater of Leipzig. It was a response to "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny," a new epic opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, and a fierce blow to the solar plexus of capitalism in the wake of world war and economic depression. The opera had its brief moment, but the German careers of both men were shattered soon afterward by the Nazi rise to power. In later decades, the brilliant score, after almost disappearing, came to be largely overshadowed by the more tuneful (and less trenchant) "Threepenny Opera," which Brecht and Weill created at virtually the same time.

Fortunately "Mahagonny" has been rising again, both at the Los Angeles Opera, and now locally, on the stage of the Cutler Majestic Theatre. A taut, edgy Opera Boston production, directed by Sam Helfrich , opened Friday night for three performances, the last of which will take place tomorrow. It is reportedly the first professional production of the work to be seen in Boston in 26 years.

"Mahagonny" is the story of a city founded by fugitives that, after a close brush with a hurricane, becomes a hedonist's dream. Its denizens, including four woodsmen from Alaska, spend their days indulging in the base pleasures of food, sex, violence, and drink. Jimmy MacIntyre, who has fallen for the prostitute Jenny Smith, discovers that the one law in this glutton's paradise that cannot be violated is the sanctity of money. One can literally get away with murder , but when Jimmy does not pay for his whisky and the use of a curtain rod, he is condemned to death and executed.

One early viewer of "Mahagonny" recognized it as a city close to home and yet absurd in its cruelty. Theodor Adorno in his review called Mahagonny a "representation of the social world in which we live, projected from the bird's-eye perspective of an already liberated society." That was Brecht's goal in a nutshell; Weill's haunting score made that city immortal.

Adorno wrote his review in 1932, but lest we think ourselves too distant from this Weimar dystopia, Helfrich and scenic designer Caleb Wertenbaker go to great lengths to make the new Mahagonny look disturbingly up-to-date. The sets suggest the back of a timeless, foul-smelling rest stop off of any American highway. Singers make their first entrances out of porta-potties, which later double unsentimentally as fornication pods. When dead bodies need to be disposed of, they are put with grim efficiency into small dumpsters. Jimmy even climbs into one before he is executed, making clean-up that much easier.

The production's footing is not always certain -- the men in hazmat suits jumping out of nowhere to condemn the stage was a bit heavy-handed -- but for a "Mahagonny" with a short run and a tight budget, this one conveys the spirit of the opera in updated terms without beating us over the head with its relevance to current social ills .

Nancy Leary costumes the men in a style you might call hipster-vagrant; the hookers don't wear much at all. The final tableau is chilling as bright florescent lights descend and the cast twitches unnervingly to the beat. The movement suggests both the plight of automatons caught in a system beyond their control, and average citizens engaged in a kind of proto-march that could morph at any moment into a goose step.

Weill's score is a breathtaking mosaic of centuries of music, shattered and recombined in ways that were revolutionary. High and low, the Baroque and the beer garden, stand cheek-by-jowl. Gil Rose did fine work in the pit, but the acoustics of the hall made the winds and brass often sound distant, blunting the music's crackling energy and softening its withering sneer. A fresher English translation would also have helped .

Joyce Castle's dusky voice has some roughness around its edges but she was persuasive as Leocadia Begbick , the city's keeper, mustering at points the starchy forcefulness of a Janacek heroine. Amy Burton's soprano has no Lenya-style grit or smokiness, but she was still an affecting Jenny -- seductive when necessary but ultimately more tender than tough. Daniel Snyder had just the right feel for MacIntyre, playing him as a simpleton with a good heart, seeking a refuge from life's endless toil, only to watch bewildered as it -- and he himself -- are consumed by the internal contradictions of a capitalist world even Mahagonny could not escape. His tenor sounded pressed at points, but he sang with courage and conviction. Stephen Salters's booming baritone was a pleasant surprise in the smaller role of Bank Account Bill. Philip Lima was a formidable Trinity Moses. Frank Kelley, Matthew DiBattista, Tom O'Toole, and Christian Figueroa made up the rest of this solid cast.

Opera Boston deserves credit for mounting this overdue "Mahagonny," and the response speaks for itself. With local audiences apparently hungry for fresh opera programming, the company sold out the first two performances before a single note was sung.

Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.