The opera, in the 1920s in Germany, was the quintessential urban spectacle. The most hypnotic or stupefying, as Brecht said, "which with its bombastic arias, elaborate decor, and dramatic themes, combined with the music, was just what was needed for a distorted representation of reality." Brecht's aim was, through the parody of the opera, to achieve a reversal of the function of bourgeois theatre from a "gastronomic" spectacle to an epic-educational one.

This new opera, instead of merely representing, foresaw the ridicule of the moral values of the bourgeois and the demystification of the most tried and preferred medium of entertainment – opera. "The Threepenny Opera," Brecht writes at that time, "is something like a lecture on life, as the viewer wants to see it in the theatre. However, since they also see some things they would rather not see, namely their desires, which will not only be fulfilled but will also become objects of critique, they will be able, theoretically at least, to recognize a new role in the theatre..." – to awaken and bring discomfort to the complacent bourgeois audience.