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Houston Grand Opera and two German theaters, 1994
Image Entertainment ID9240RADVD; 142 min; $29.99
This excellent shared production of Kurt Weill's Street Scene (1947) from Houston, Ludwigshafen and Berlin brings his Broadway opera to vivid life. Its romantic realism captures New York tenement dwellers as surely as Gershwin captures a Catfish Row slum twelve years earlier in Porgy and Bess, his Broadway opera. Street Scene has similar elements to Porgy: a love triangle to end in murder, a celebration of ice cream to parallel a picnic, song-and-dance men like Sportin' Life and Crown and a big ensemble cast. Though Weill writes a more cohesive musical score, he falls a bit short of Gershwin's winning way with melody. Had Weill been an optimistic sentimentalist like Gershwin with Porgy's determination (hopelessly unrealistic) to go to New York to find Bess, Weill might have had a more upbeat conclusion also.
Street Scene's expert realistic direction (Francesca Zambello), impressive single set (Adrianne Lobel) and depression costumes (Martin Pahledinaz) allow Weill's musical riches to shine and showcase varieties of love. Such love includes middle-aged adulterers (Anna Maurrant and the milkman), a con man...