Bertolt Brecht –
Das Chaos ist aufgebraucht
('The chaos has been spent')
'The chaos has been spent. That was the best time.' – Bertolt Brecht
In his early poems and in the dramas from the era when Bertolt Brecht celebrated his greatest successes, there is much talk about the futility of human endeavour. He depicts a world full of social injustice and egoism. With his cool, critical mind, the almost twenty-year-old Brecht shook up the citizens, and held up a mirror to them. He, who actually came from a middle class family that was comfortably off, appointed himself the voice of the deprived and the proletariat. In late 1920s Berlin, he caused a furore with his musical dramas, for which Kurt Weill wrote the scores, including their international success The Threepenny Opera. Once they became famous, the chaos was spent. For Brecht, it had been 'the best time'. What followed was escape from the Nazis and being driven out of Germany.
Together with the actor Tilmar Kuhn, and the conductor and pianist Adam Benzwi, the celebrated singer and actor Katharine Mehrling performs a stirring selection of songs and texts from the poet's golden times.
The Californian Adam Benzwi has lived in Berlin since 1984. The pianist and conductor's most recent major successes were Chicago at the Komische Oper, and Brecht's Threepenny Opera at the Berliner Ensemble, both staged by Barrie Kosky. He is a Musical/Show professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, and is particularly interested in the music of the 1920s. Benzwi's works since he has been based in Berlin have therefore also included Cabaret at the Bar jeder Vernunft, and many other legendary productions. His next major project for the Komische Oper Berlin is Barrie Kosky's All Singing, All Dancing Yiddish Revue.
Katharine Mehrling is an extremely versatile artist. Her at times very quiet, multifaceted voice moves effortlessly along the entire spectrum from high to low. The actress and singer is the star of Berlin's operetta and musical stages, and can currently be seen at the Komische Oper in Chicago, and also at the Berliner Ensemble. She has won the people's choice theatre award Goldener Vorhang as 'Berlin's most popular actress' six times, and in 2018, she was honoured for her entire body of work on the stages of Berlin.
Following his graduation from Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, the actor Tilmar Kuhn performed in theatres in Oldenburg, Braunschweig, Munich, Hamburg, Leipzig and Stuttgart, for example, and at the Schlossparktheater Berlin. He has appeared in various TV series, such as the long-running soap opera Lindenstraße, the crime series Ein Starkes Team and the series Dr. Sommerfeld. He also lends his voice to audio dramas and features, and is an accomplished voice actor. He appears in Katherine Mehrling's music video Straßen von Berlin.
