Part 1

In the beginning, there is nothing but the desert – the end of the line. The Widow Begbick, Trinity Moses and Fatty decide to start a business from scratch and found a city designed to make them money. They advertise “Mahagonny, the City of Nets” as a paradise, where there is peace and harmony and seven days without work. The slogan sounds promising, and many people start making pilgrimages to Mahagonny. Among them are four men who have earned their bread for seven years as lumberjacks in Alaska: Jim Mahoney, Jakob Schmidt, Alaska Wolf Joe and Bank-Account Billy. Jim Mahoney quickly realizes that Mahagonny is no paradise city – love exists only in the form of prostitution, happiness only in the form of false appearances. He rebels, protesting with the words: “But something is missing.”

Part 2

A hurricane sweeps the land. For Jim Mahoney, this is the occasion to take up the fight against Begbick’s system and rewrite the laws of Mahagonny. The slogan “You can” becomes the new motto: you can eat, you can make love, box, drink. Gradually, Mahagonny’s inhabitants self-annihilate: Jakob Schmidt eats himself to death, the prostitutes fornicate to death, Joe dies in a boxing match against Trinity Moses. Jim, who bet all his money on Joe at the boxing match, is put on trial before Begbick’s court and sentenced to death – for those who have no money in Mahagonny must die. In this manner, the City of Mahagonny gradually ceases to exist. In the end, there is nothing but the desert. Will those few who have not yet been extinguished succeed in formulating a new utopia?