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Kurt Weill Street Scene

The Opera Group/Young Vic co-production
Book by Elmer Rice Lyrics by Langston Hughes

Young Vic, London, 20 September 2011

Paul Curievici Geoffrey Dolton Paul Featherstone Elena Ferrari Susanna Hurrell James McOran-Campbell John Moabi Kate Nelson Charlotte Page Paul Reeves Simone Sauphanor Joseph Shovelton Harriet Williams Nathan Vale

Conductor Keith Lockhart (BBC Concert Orchestra) Direction John Fulljames Design Dick Bird Light Jon Clark Choreography Arthur Pita

Lewisham Choral Society Reay Primary School Vauxhall Primary School Wyvil Primary School

Kurt Weill's Hollywood opera at the Young Vic, seen next day after Weinberg's The Passenger, was a triumphant theatrical experience, marred only by serious audibility problems for the words in the first half (surtitles would have helped).

By the interval we'd sorted out the cast and their roles in the searing drama which was to come and surprise those of us new to Street Scene and who hadn't done our homework. The background (tenement life in Manhattan's Lower East Side during a heatwave in the 1940s) was supplied in a brilliantly informative programme in the style of a mock broadsheet of the period.

Praise all round for the music under Keith Lockhart and the production of John Fulljames; every participant is named in the programme and every single one will be proud to have taken part. The children's groups were brilliant, professional to every last one.

For comprehensive reviews which convey our feelings about this great night at the Opera, a triumphant revival of a 2008 co-production between The Opera Group, the Young Vic and the Watford Palace Theatre, may I link you to Robert Hugill and The Telegraph "A thrilling revival of Kurt Weill's 1947 Broadway opera".

After a month at the Young Vic, where you will do well to try to catch it, it will be touring.

Peter Grahame Woolf

For a different opinion see Kurt Weill's Street Scene - MusicalCriticism.com (opera review)

Tour dates:
25 & 26 Sep Theater an der Wien, Vienna
4 Oct The Anvil, Basingstoke
7 – 8 Oct Edinburgh Festival Theatre
11 – 12 Oct The Riverfront Theatre, Newport
14 & 15 Oct Hull Truck Theatre

Photos: Alastair Muir