Street Scene at Barcelona Opera House Gran Teatre Del Liceu

Midway between opera and musical

Kurt Weill launched his short but memorable American career with this work, which spans the gap between the 20th-century European operatic tradition -- complete with 19th-century reminiscences -- and American popular culture, with the deep imprint of Afro-American music. The blend of social criticism with the sound of Broadway takes the audience by surprise.

Street Scene (Philadelphia, 1946) was the first opera of Kurt Weill´s American period (he himself defined it as an «American opera»). Influenced by both the Broadway musical and jazz, it features recitative, dialogue, arias, ensembles and songs. The libretto is by the politically engagé playwright Elmer Rice, who based it a play of his own that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929. The lyrics are by the black poet Langston Hughes. The action takes place outside an apartment block in a poverty-ridden district of New York. The block´s inhabitants are the core figures of the different tales that make up the harshly realistic plot, which is deeply pervaded by social criticism and comes to a tragic ending.

American opera in two acts. Libretto by Elmer Rice based on his own play. Lyrics by Langston Hughes. Music by Kurt Weill. First performed on 16 December 1946 at the Schubert Theater in Philadelphia. First performance in Spain.

Authors

• Elmer Rice
• Kurt Weill
• Langston Hughes