Productions of “Threepenny Opera” live or die based on two aspects, the band and the translation.

Kurt Weill’s 1928 score is the masterpiece here. Bertolt Brecht’s libretto was daring and experimental but finally the victim of his anti-theatrical obsession, the so-called “alienation” effect. Heard in German, even for a non-speaker, it is overwhelmingly gross and exciting. A translation must make the story coherent without losing the jagged, brutal power of the crude word structure.

For the excellent San Diego Repertory Theatre production, the music is in the fine, capable hands of Mark Danisovszky, a local theatre treasure, who has been given a fine seven-piece ensemble plus the part-time help of a couple of actors.

Danisovszky’s tempos are impeccable, his own keyboard playing is definitive and the overall feel of the music is precisely in the ground-breaking tradition of Weill’s original 15-piece orchestrations.

The translation, however, is another matter. The Rep is using the version created by theatre critic Michael Feingold for the failed 1989 Broadway production starring Sting.

There may never be an ideal English translation of this work. The first, by Eric Bentley, comes closest to Brecht, many feel, but is basically unstageable. The most popular, which ran off-Broadway for 2,611 performances starting in 1955, was by Marc Blitzstein, though nearly everyone agrees now that it’s a bit too sweet.

(That original Blitzstein cast recording, a real treasure, features some truly absurd self-censorship based on the tender tastes of the period: “Chippie” became “Cutie” and “Get off your ass” was turned into “Get on your feet.” Especially amazing compared to all the naughty words in Feingold’s work, possibly even further cussed-up by the Rep.)

Wallace Shawn did one of the most recent attempts but the preferred standard is the 1979 text by Ralph Manheim and John Willett for a New York Shakespeare Festival version featuring Raul Julia.

There’s nothing really wrong with the Feingold take, however, and Rep director Sam Woodhouse has led his cast to a genuine enthusiasm for the words, matching the obvious overall care and respect which has been slathered over this entire production.

(A couple of Feingoldisms are particularly ripe: “True love is rosier than a tanned bottom!” and “People don’t mind creating misery but they can’t stand to look at it.” I hope I got those right.)

Despite all this and more, there’s still some ultimate holding back that stops this production at hugely satisfying, well short of legendary. Perhaps there is too much reverence and not enough desperation. Or just a couple of key miscalculations in a performing style far harder than it looks.

The cast mostly delivers the goods. Jeffrey Meek is suave and sexy as the notorious London criminal Macheath, in this sardonic takeoff on John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera” of 1728, but it’s hard to picture him actually knifing somebody.

For all the talk of bloody violence in Brecht’s savage dialogue, there isn’t any at all in this production. Sure, that’s part of the irony. But it works better when there’s a feeling these guys, if really meaning it, could be scary indeed.

Instead, the scariest actor on stage is dear Leigh Scarritt, who seems to have been born to sing these songs. (But don’t we so often find ourselves saying that about Scarritt in nearly any musical theatre style?) She’s the formidable wife and crime partner of J. J. Peachum, who runs the entire beggar racket in this vaguely Victorian London. Peachum is played with delicate menace by Lyle Kanouse, who does sturdy service in keeping the plot moving.

(The plot, deep-fried in Brecht’s sarcasm about the decadent nihilism of pre-Nazi Germany, has Macheath “marrying” Peachum’s daughter to further enhance an already gaudy and prosperous crime career based on his friendship with the London police chief. He’s brought down though by Peachum’s furious threat to disrupt the coming coronation festivities with an infestation of beggars if Macheath isn’t hanged. Which he almost is.)

Gale McNeeley gives a doughty gloss to Macheath’s old school chum, the cop, and Mac’s gang is played with enthusiasm but little attempt at character clarification by Ruff Yeager, Bryan Barbarin, Karson St. John, Danny King and Jim Mooney, the latter two moonlighting musicians, as is Shawn Goodman Jones, the new beggar recruit.

The women in Macheath’s life are played with much clearer individualism. Surprisingly, the Jenny Diver role (Lotte Lenya’s part in the original) is the least vivid here. Lisa Payton Jartu has only one solo song – “Salomon Song” – and she sounds preoccupied. She’s much more effective in the “Pimp Ballad” with Meek but she gets her plow cleaned when she shares the show’s big pop hit – the “Ballad of Mack the Knife” – with the other two young ladies.

Both are real bearcats. Amanda Kramer uses her angelic beauty and clear, true soprano to great effect in the acting and, though she fails to really nail the “Pirate Jenny” song (Who other than Lenya and maybe Ute Lemper really has?) she’s super in the other music. And Amy Ashworth Biedel as the knocked-up daughter of the police chief rips through “The Barbara Song” and then battles Kramer to a draw in their “Jealousy Duet,” a true highpoint of the show.

These great numbers often get shifted around between these three roles and I believe Woodhouse has made all the right decisions here. (I’m not so sure about moving the Ballad to the top of Act II and making it a trio. Momentum suffers.) Biedel slips into some audience-pandering right at the end of “Barbara Song” and Kramer is a little slow in establishing her bitchy edge in “Pirate Jenny,” but the important stuff is all in place.

There are nice moments of movement thanks to choreographer Javier Velasco and the decor – other than an unfortunate decision about basic makeup design – is quite acceptable.

The show is about the words and the music and the people bringing them. The most-quoted line defines the work: Translations vary but I prefer “What is robbing a bank compared to founding a bank?” Certainly that has resonance for our times. But Sam Woodhouse ignores the easy shots and concentrates on the legend, thus providing a superb reading of a priceless classic and the Rep’s best show in many a season.

`

DOWNLOAD CAST HERE

DOWNLOAD ACT ONE SONGS HERE

DOWNLOAD ACT TWO SONGS HERE