Sagunt a Escena revives The Threepenny Opera with Coque Malla in lead role
The 43rd edition of Sagunt a Escena, Sagunto's summer arts festival, stages The Threepenny Opera this weekend (8-9 August), starring Spanish actor and singer Coque Malla.
The 43rd edition of Sagunt a Escena, Sagunto's summer festival of theatre and music, adds a new date this weekend. The programme brings back The Threepenny Opera, with Spanish singer and actor Coque Malla in the lead role, in a performance planned for Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 August. It is one of the most anticipated events of an edition that this summer mixes contemporary work with major titles from the international repertoire, as part of the summer cultural calendar of Camp de Morvedre (the district around Sagunto).
The opera being staged in Sagunto has a history of almost a hundred years. It premiered on 31 August 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, with music by Kurt Weill and a libretto by Bertolt Brecht. That original production was itself an adaptation of an 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, written by John Gay. This double origin — 18th-century London through Gay, and interwar Berlin through Brecht and Weill — explains why the piece is still performed nearly a century later: it mixes popular song with social satire to portray mechanisms of power and inequality that time has not made outdated, which is why it remains one of the most staged works of 20th-century musical theatre.
Coque Malla takes on the lead role with a career that spans both music and film. The artist, whose real name is Jorge Malla Valle, won his first Goya Award (Spain's top film prize) in 2019 for the song "Este es el momento" ("This Is the Moment"), the main theme of the film Campeones (Champions). That recognition raised his profile beyond music and explains the interest around his casting in a stage production of this scale.
For residents of Sagunto and the wider Camp de Morvedre, this performance is part of a summer programme that this year marks its 43rd edition with a mix of classic theatre, music and circus through July and August. The advance programme does not say whether extra performances of the opera will be added or whether booking is required, so organisers recommend checking the festival's official channels before attending. Bringing back a title as well established as The Threepenny Opera, almost a century after its Berlin premiere, confirms Sagunt a Escena's approach of mixing contemporary creation with major classics of the international repertoire in its August programme.
According to elperiodic.com, with additional background from Wikipedia on the opera and on Coque Malla's career.