1 Monty: Have you seen any other significant premieres?
2 Prof. Jones: There was that opera in Berlin in 1928. About a criminal in Victorian London named Mack.
3 Prof. Jones: He was very skilled with a knife.
3 Monty: I've heard about this one.
4 Prof. Jones: He cut holes in people's skulls with it. It was called The Trepanning Opera.

The wonderful jazz standard Mack the Knife began life as a song from the the musical play The Threepenny Opera - which is not actually an opera despite its title. It's actually an early example of what we know now as musical theatre, which developed around the end of the 19th century out of the light comic operettas such as those of Gilbert and Sullivan and their contemporaries.