POING & Maja S. K. Ratkje: Ludenoper (WP)

Ludenoper is an outrageous, freewheeling music-theatre performance centred around the music of Brecht/Weill, which took Berlin and the rest of the world by storm in the late 1920s. 

Vocalist/composer Maja S. K. Ratkje and Norwegian group POING and have enjoyed a long affinity with the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, and in Ludenoper they return to the roots of the duo’s most famous work, the anarchic Threepenny Opera (1928). 

Many of its songs have entered standard 20th century pop and jazz repertoire, but Ludenoper (The Pimp’s Opera) recreates Brecht/Weill’s original conception, aimed at the smoky, decadent underworld of the Weimar Berlin cabaret.

The production is informed by set designer and scenographer Tormod Lindgren’s extensive knowledge of the milieu of Brecht and Weill. Author and Threepenny Opera expert Finn Iunker contributes the text.