The Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny, Usher Hall, Edinburgh Festival

The trouble with Kurt Weill's Mahagonny is that it is an American musical, curdled into irony and cynicism; a Bach passion, full of spare counterpoint; a barbershop number; a Brechtian Lehrstück, moralistic and intellectual. Its uneasy balance of genres requires exceptional performers.

This concert performance had a perfectly acceptable cast and a conductor, HK Gruber, who is known for his sense of humour. But they never got within a mile of bringing it off.