From: ray@gawain.cif.rochester.edu (Raymond Sunessen Tuttle)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Kurt Weill's "Street Scene" on London
Date: 13 Apr 92 00:24:54 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)

I imagine that many music-lovers, asked to name a great American opera, would
name "Porgy and Bess." I would cast my vote for Kurt Weill's "Street Scene."
Like Gershwin's more famous work, it joins classical and popular idioms, and 
although the seams show, the seams give these works their typically "American"
melting-pot, eclectic quality.

Why is "Street Scene" so good? The book (by Elmer Rice) and lyrics (by
Langston Hughes) tell the story of Anna Maurrant, a woman who is shot after
being caught by her brutish husband in flagrante delicto with another man.
Anna is both a moving and believable character, and a symbol for the plight of
many women in American society, who are valued more for that they do for men
than for who they are. The depiction of the people who share the shabby walk-
up apartment house in New York City with her and her family strike a realistic
chord in their alternation between being generous and callously judgemental.
The opera's view of lower-middle-class American city life in the 40's is
unsentimental but never cruel, picturesque but never stereotypical.

Weill's music moves from the frankly operatic (Anna's "Somehow I never could
believe," "Remember that I care") to snappy, jazzy numbers (The Ice-Cream
Sextet, "Moon-faced, starry-eyed") with naturalness. The score is proof that
success and America did not spoil Weill, the German wunderkind who also wrote
"Die Dreigroschenoper."

A recording of the complete work on London Records (433 371, 2 CDs) is the
second to appear in the past few months. It is conducted by John Mauceri, a
Weill specialist whose interpretations carry the approval of Lotte Lenya,
Weill's wife. Mauceri's direction is sensitive to the score's many colors,
although it can't cover up the fact that the work is curiously (but not 
fatally) top-heavy: little happens in the long (almost 85 minutes) first act,
and Anna's murder in the second act happens very suddenly and a full 25
minutes before he final curtain comes down. 

As Anna, Josephine Barstow offers a gutsy, moving portrayal of a woman who is
frustrated and trapped. As her daughter Rose, Angelina Reaux proves to be a
superior singing and speaking actress. Reaux's Rose is partnered by Jerry
Hadley, singing the role of Sam Kaplan. Hadley gets to sing "Lonely House," one
of the score's plums, and he sings it with earnest sincerity. It seems a waste
to have cast Samuel Ramey as loutish Frank Maurrant, since he has little to 
sing, but he does accomplish the unlikely feat of sounding thoroughly
unlikeable. The large, strong cast also includes surprising appearances by
Barbara Bonney (in the tiny role of Jenny Hildebrand), and Arleen Auger and
Della Jones as two amusingly blood-thirsty nurses (London even credits their
infant charges in the cast list).

Much of the rest of the cast sounds as if they are from the British Isles;
the recording was made in Glasgow, and the orchestra and chorus are from the
Scottish National Opera. Consequently, a few of the "American" accents are
a little suspect, but I guess anything can happen on a New York City tenement
block. This fine recording makes a good case for considering "Street Scene" to
be a work which represents both the best of Kurt Weill and the best of
American opera. I hope that someone, and soon, considers recording Weill's
delicious 1941 musical (with lyrics by Ira Gershwin) "Lady in the Dark."
Mauceri seems like just the man to do it.


--
Ray and his two     "Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod,"
little white mice,   but it's nothing to get depressed about.
named Ursula and
Gudrun. *******************************************************
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical