STREET SCENE

CENTRAL CITY OPERA: July 13,17,20,26,28,30: August 3

(playing in repertoire with Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and Kurt Weill’s “Street Scene.”)

 

 

Run to get tickets to Central City Opera’s towering production of Kurt Weill’s “STREET SCENE!!!” There are only two matinees remaining. (Opening night was canceled due to illness in the cast, and this was the earliest I could reschedule.)

 

     If you saw the 1999 CCO production of Weill’s Street Scene, you may recognize the incredibly well-done scenic design by David Harwell.   Everything else is brand new for this production!

    With book by Elmer Rice, and Lyrics by Langston Hughes, Composer Kurt Weill’s “Street Scene” presents us with life on two scorching hot summer days on a New York City street.

     Weill’s opera is based upon Elmer Rice’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1929 play about life in the slums. Intending it to be an amalgam of traditional European opera and American musical theatre, Weill won the Tony Award for Best Composer at the First Tony Awards Ceremony in 1947.

      Having fled from Berlin in 1933, Weill came by way of Paris and London to New York City in 1935. 

      When speaking with my friend, Henry Lowenstein, many years ago, Henry talked about Kurt Weill composing works such as “The Threepenny Opera,” which had lyrics by Bertolt Brecht   - “Mack the Knife” - on the piano in the Lowenstein home in Berlin.)  But I digress…  

     Rice’s book for Weill’s opera allows for certain portions of this piece to be dialogue underscored by music to put emphasis on the various sounds of the accents in the melting pot that was then East Manhattan.

     Director/choreographer Daniel Pelzig paces the production at a bright clip.

       The actors onstage and the musicians in the pit of the Central City Opera Orchestra are kept in perfect alignment under the baton of conductor Adam Turner. 

     

     Katherine Pracht portrays Anna Maurrant, the longsuffering under-appreciated wife of the piece with a mellifluous soprano.

     Christian Sanders’ portrayal of the tender-hearted and ultimately heartbroken Sam Kaplan is delivered with a tenor that is breathtaking. 

      Christie Conover’s soaring soprano as Rose Maurrant, is ear-pleasing indeed!

       The part of Frank Maurrant is brought to life by the powerful singing and acting of basso Kevin Burdette, the artist who stunned as Claggert in CCO’s astounding production of Benjamin Britten’s BILLY BUDD a few seasons back.

     The show deals with the challenges these immigrants had as well as the complex nature of their heart-wrenching, relationships.

     Weill’s score is full of operatic arias such as Anna’s “Somehow I Never Could Believe” and Frank’s strident “Let Things Be Like They Always Was.”    

     Weill delivers jazz and blues in such numbers as “I Got a Marble and a Star” and “Lonely House.” 

     Some of the songs leaning into the Broadway style are “Wrapped in a Ribbon and Tied in a Bow”, “Wouldn’t You Like to be on Broadway” and “Moon-Faced, Starry Eyed.”

      There are so many outstanding performances - over thirty named roles in the cast- and so little time to get this review out!

      Go and experience this magnificent production for yourself!!!

 

                      GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!

 

                     NOT TO BE MISSED!!!

 

     

 

For tickets go online to boxoffice@centralcityopera.org 

or call 303-292-6700