Barrie Kosky never really liked The Threepenny Opera before he came to direct it. He told Limelight as much last year.

So, when it came to staging it for the Berliner Ensemble in 2021, he set about reworking it with the help of musical director Adam Benzwi.

In doing so they made cuts – lots of them – and challenged assumptions about Brechtian technique and how the piece, which Weill described as a “farce with music”, should be staged.

The result is a work of genius, giving The Threepenny Opera the contemporary treatment it so justly deserves.

In fact, after witnessing this performance at the Adelaide Festival, one wonders how it could ever have been staged differently.

It’s slick, it’s smooth and, like Gabriel Schneider’s Macheath (aka Mack the Knife), it’s sexy.

Gabriel Schneider in Berliner Ensemble’s Threepenny Opera directed by Barrie Kosky © Jörg Brüggemann

The portrayal of Macheath is key to Kosky’s unlocking of the piece, and Schneider delivers a breathtaking vocal and physically agile performance.

Gone is the clipped, cold ‘gentleman’ epitomised in Keith Warner’s dour Viennese production, or the Marlene Dietrich/Quentin Crisp hybrid in Robert Wilson’s acclaimed staging that preceded Kosky’s at...