Street Scene

“The challenge (of Street Scene) was to find a form that translated the realism of (Elmer Rice's) plot into music. The result applies the techniques of opera without ever falling into the artificiality of opera”
Kurt Weill

Yes, easier said than done. But it is what we'll all be working for. And it is some of the greatest American theatre music of the twentieth century.

Seventy years after its premiere on Broadway, Street Scene remains as potent and vital today as it was then. Intended by the composer to be a synthesis of European traditional opera and American musical theatre, this story of life in New York focusses on the loves and passions of an East Side Manhattan community.