Street scene
| Musical dates | |
|---|---|
| Title: | A street in New York |
| Original title: | Street scene |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Kurt Weill |
| Book: | Elmer Rice |
| Lyrics: | Langston Hughes |
| Literary source: | Drama "Street Scene" by Elmer Rice |
| Premiere: | New York, January 9, 1947 |
| Playing time: | approx. 150 min. |
| Place and time of the action: | Outside a Manhattan apartment building, June 1946 |
| Roles / people | |
|
The Maurrants
The chaplains
The Fiorentinos
The Jones
The Olsens
The Hildebrands
Other residents
Home visitors
|
|
Street Scene is a music theater piece by Kurt Weill in two acts. The last act is again divided into two pictures. The piece is based on the drama of the same name by the librettist Elmer Rice, the lyrics are by Langston Hughes . It premiered on January 9, 1947 at the Adelphi Theater in New York City. In Germany, Street Scene was first performed on November 26, 1955 in the municipal theater in Düsseldorf.
In this work, Weill realized his dream of an American opera. He himself described his work as American Opera . He intended a synthesis of traditional European opera and the American Broadway musical.
Street Scene shows an excerpt from the life of simple tenants in New York, their wishes and problems, hopes and disappointments.
Emergence
Weill was familiar with Elmer Rice's Street Scene , which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, from a production in Berlin and proposed a musical arrangement as early as 1936. Rice initially responded negatively and only agreed 10 years later. Weill and Rice chose the poet and writer Langston Hughes as their librettist and asked him to write a simple text in everyday language. They intensified the love story of Sam and Rose and weakened the topic of anti-Semitism, which in the original is heavily related to Sam's experiences. Weill studied popular American incidental music for a long time and tried to create his own music in a new American style for Broadway, film and radio, the American Opera .
" For me it means the fulfillment of two dreams that I had dreamed of over the last twenty years and that had become a kind of center around which all my thinking and planning revolved. "
The two dreams Weill speaks of were on the one hand “a real combination of drama and music, in which singing naturally starts where speaking stops”. On the other hand, the dream of an American opera is meant. Elements of the Broadway style stand alongside those of the European opera tradition with its traditional forms. Like this, Street Scene obeyed the classical unity of time and place according to Aristotle.
“ It's my opinion that we can and will develop a musical-dramatic form in this country (America) but I don't think it will be called 'opera', or that it will grow out of the opera which has become a thing separate from the commercial theater […]. It will develop from and remain a part of the American theater - 'Broadway' theater, if you like. More than anything else, I want to be part of that development. "
Weill is said to have called Street Scene a Broadway Opera in private circles . However, the work was publicly sold as a dramatic musical so that the American audience was not immediately put off by the term opera .
orchestra
Flute (also piccolo), oboe, 2 clarinets, baritone clarinet (also three clarinets), bassoon - 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones - percussion (jazz percussion, triangle, gong, bell, glockenspiel) - harp, piano (also two Pianos), celesta strings
action
The action extends over an evening and the following day. There are two main storylines: the affair of Mrs. Maurrants and their discovery and the love story of her daughter Rose Maurrant with the neighbor Sam Kaplan. Street Scene deals with everyday relationships, quarrels and neighbors' gossip, while tensions within the Maurrant family gradually build up to a tragic climax as the play progresses.
first act
On a humid summer evening, the neighbors of an apartment building complain about the heat. The main topic of conversation is Anna Maurrant, who is said to have an affair with the milkman Sankey. Mr. Buchanan appears and tells about his pregnant wife. His complaints that having children are more difficult for a man than for a woman arouse great amusement among the neighbors. Upon returning home, Frank Maurrant tells his wife about a business trip the next day. He is annoyed to discover that his daughter Rose has not yet returned from work. In her passionate aria "Somehow I Never Could Believe" Mrs. Maurrant sings of unfulfilled wishes and disappointed hopes. She is trapped in her dreary everyday life, but still has not stopped dreaming of better days. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Maurrant goes to look for her son Willie. However, the neighbors only see this as an excuse to meet with their alleged lover. They speculate what Mr. Maurrant will do should he find out about the affair. Mr. Fiorentino brings ice cream cones for all the neighbors and cuts off the gossip. Instead, everyone in the “Ice Scream Sextet” praises ice cream and the drugstore as America's greatest achievements. Afterwards, a group of schoolgirls come home from giving their certificates. The whole neighborhood dances and celebrates. In the middle of the festivities, Sankey stops by again to run errands for his wife. Mr. Maurrant watches him suspiciously. Later that evening, all of the neighbors withdrew to their apartments, except for Sam Kaplan. He is still outside, feels alone and sees the quiet house as a symbol of his own loneliness. Rose Maurrant finally returns home, accompanied by her boss, Mr. Easter. Although he is married, he promises her a career on Broadway if she becomes his lover. Rose initially refuses, because she dreams of true love. Still, she contemplates the offer when excited Mr. Buchanan asks her to call the doctor because his wife is in labor. On her return, Rose Maurrant is molested by Vincent Jones and Sam comes to her aid. The two confess their feelings for each other. They are depressed by their living conditions, but hope to be able to escape them one day.
Second act
1st picture
The first neighbors wake up early the next morning. The younger children are already playing outside in front of the house. Mr. Buchanan tells the neighbors about his newborn daughter. Then the drunk Mr. Maurrant steps out of the house. Rose, who wants to help her parents, approaches him and asks him to be nicer to her mother and to drink less. However, Mr. Maurrant doesn't want to hear about it and instead starts an argument with Rose and Mrs. Maurrant. When he leaves for a business trip, his wife feels lonely and misunderstood. Sam's sister Shirley Kaplan asks Rose to leave her brother alone so he can concentrate on his studies. They are interrupted by Sam and Rose tells him about Mr. Easter's offer last night. She hopes to be able to help her family with more money. Sam, dismayed, asks her not to accept the offer. He suggests going out together and leaving all problems behind. Eventually, Mr. Easter appears and Rose goes with him to her boss's funeral. When Sankey passes the house, Mrs. Maurrant asks him upstairs. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Maurrant unexpectedly comes back after breaking off his trip. He sees the closed shutters in his apartment and storms up there furiously. Sam tries to stop him, but in vain. A scream and two shots sound, then Sankey tries to escape through the window. However, he is withdrawn and shot by Mr. Maurrant. Frank Maurrant flees armed and full of blood. Police officers, paramedics and lots of onlookers appear at the crime scene. Rose returns too, just as Mrs. Maurrant's body is being carried out. She follows her crying.
2nd picture
Two nannies walk past the house and talk about the murder. Rose, dressed in black, asks a police officer for news about her father. He has not yet been caught. Suddenly two shots can be heard and the neighbors tell of Mr. Maurrant's arrest. He appears flanked by police officers and wants to talk to his daughter one last time. He protests to her that he has always loved his wife, then he is taken away. Sam asks Rose what she will do next. She wants to leave with Willie, but without Sam. Due to the fate of her parents, she lost faith in love. She says goodbye and leaves. The neighbors are already gossiping again, this time about Rose and her relationship with Mr. Easter. They complain about the heat ...
Musical numbers
- Act 1
- "Ain't It Awful, The Heat?" - Greta Fiorentino, Emma Jones, Olga and Carl Olsen, Abraham Kaplan
- "I Got A Marble And A Star" - Henry Davis
- "Get A Load Of That" - Emma Jones, Greta Fiorentino, Olga Olsen
- "When A Woman Has A Baby" - Daniel Buchanan, Greta Fiorentino, Emma Jones, Anna Maurrant
- "She Shouldn't Be Staying Out Nights" - Frank and Anna Maurrant, Greta Fiorentino
- "Somehow I Never Could Believe" - Anna Maurrant
- “Whatcha Think Of That?” - Emma and George Jones, Carl Olsen, Greta Fiorentino
- "Ice Cream Sextet" - Lippo and Greta Fiorentino, Carl and Olga Olsen, George Jones, Henry Davis
- "Let Things Be Like They Always Was" - Frank Maurrant
- "Wrapped In A Ribbon And Tied In A Bow" - Jennie Hildebrand, Ensemble
- "Lonely House" - Sam Kaplan
- "Wouldn't You Like To Be On Broadway?" - Harry Easter
- “What Good Would The Moon Be?” - Rose Maurrant
- "Moon-faced, Starry-eyed" - Dick McGann, Mae Jones
- Remember That I Care - Sam Kaplan, Rose Maurrant
- "I Got A Marble And A Star (Reprise)" - Henry Davis
- Act 2
- "Catch Me If You Can" - Charlie and Mary Hildebrand, Willie Maurrant, Grace Davis, Children
- "There'll Be Trouble" - Frank, Rose and Anna Maurrant
- "A Boy Like You" - Anna Maurrant
- "We'll Go Away Together" - Rose Maurrant, Sam Kaplan
- "The Woman Who Lived Up There" ensemble
- "Lullaby" - Nursemaid # 1, Nursemaid # 2
- "I Loved Her, Too" - Frank and Rose Maurrant, Ensemble
- "Don't Forget The Lilac Bush" - Sam Kaplan, Rose Maurrant
- "Ain't It Awful, The Heat? (Reprise) “- Greta Fiorentino, Emma Jones, Olga Olsen, Abraham Kaplan
music
Weill's dream was to fuse popular American music with classical European opera. This required a new way of composing, from which Street Scene (an American Opera ) emerged. Weill wanted to entertain the audience and integrate different worlds and their musical idioms. His aim was to avoid an interruption of the plot and instead to use the music as an indispensable aid for the natural plot and stage events. Weill called his songs numbers and also used opera terms such as Aria or Arietta for some . Different genres and styles, such as dance music, opera aria, jazz rhythms, lyrical espressivo, including fundamental opposites, up to the school song "Wrapped in a Ribbon", characterize Weill's draft of an American opera. Due to the variety of popular musical styles and the operatic influences, the numbers in Street Scene present some challenges in terms of singing and should not be underestimated in the quality of a European opera. Singing should fit naturally into the normality of everyday life. The songs reveal more about the dramatic plot, drive it forward, provide motivation and an insight into the character of the work and the actors. Rice's original dialogues were largely left untouched and entire passages were performed without an orchestra, or sometimes only slightly accompanied by music. In his monologue arias and intense emotional duets alone, the original text was changed because of the music. The transitions between speaking and singing are fluid. The spoken scenes between the numbers are recitative, but the dialogue merges with the respective musical number. The underscoring is the musical background of the text in place of a middle-affective level, not sung in, but is also no longer just spoken. It also allows the characters to have everyday conversations without having to resort to aria or recitative.
In Street Scene , Weill breaks the conventions of the familiar with unusual combinations of musical styles. Weill observed children playing in the slums and explored nightclubs to ensure a realistic reproduction of the language in his songs. Thanks to his studies in different milieus, Weill was able to use children's singing games and jazz true to the moment and situation. For Weill, an expression for reality played a major role in creating authenticity and identity in his work. A "realism" in the sense of a realistic action with realistic music (from jazz or jitterbugs, for example) in a realistic vocal performance should arise. One of the best examples of a mixture of aria and musical songs is "Somehow I could never believe". On the one hand, this number is considered to be the most conventional soprano aria that Weill has ever written and shows traces of Puccini's musical style, on the other hand, it also contains jazz rhythms. In the parodic “Icecream Sextet” the style of the bel canto opera of the late 19th century can be seen. With "Moon-faced, Starry-eyed" the characters Dick McGann and Mae Jones offer a jazzy jitterbug dance interlude. In the number "I Got A Marble And A Star" by the colored caretaker Henry Davis, spiritual influences can be recognized.
reception
The premiere was recorded mixed. In addition to many enthusiastic voices, there were also critical voices, which was also reflected in the number of visitors. Instead of the innovative ideas of the work, contemporary critics saw in Street Scene only a successor to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess . With 148 performances, the piece was not a flop, but compared to other popular Broadway shows, it was not a hit either. Weill was nevertheless satisfied and saw his goal of producing a new American opera fulfilled.
At the time, the term “opera” was a similar stimulus for Broadway as “Broadway” was for the German opera audience. Eight years after the American premiere, the first German and at the same time European staging of Street Scene took place at the Städtische Bühnen in Düsseldorf in 1955 . The piece initially met with rejection from German critics, although the text written by Theodor W. Adorno in the program booklet probably also contributed to this negative reception. Under the title “After a quarter of a century”, Adorno repeated the thoughts that he had already formulated in an obituary to Weill in 1950 and published in the Frankfurter Rundschau. Weill's work in America and the street scene itself are not mentioned in any way in the program text, so that the impression is given that Weill did not compose anything after 1930.
As in America, the piece had to put up with a comparison in Germany, but this time with Weill's own work The Threepenny Opera . Weill himself thought little of Adorno's judgment on American theater and protested vigorously against its criticism. In fact, there is no evidence that Adorno ever saw a performance of Street Scene or any other American work by Weill. Still, his criticism of Street Scene will not have left German critics unaffected.
Between 1958 and 1990 there was no longer any performance in Germany. The constant comparison with the Threepenny Opera and the distinction between German and American Weill ensured a one-sided, sometimes even wrong view of the work. It was only with the musical boom of the 1990s and a changed understanding of Weill's work in America that there was an increase in productions in Germany (e.g. in 1993 at the Munich State Theater on Gärtnerplatz). The opera is now considered a musical rarity and “an unjustifiably neglected work” whose rare performance is regretted. However, there are currently still critics who stick to the division between German and American: In a review from 2012 on the staging of the “Musiktheater im Revier” Gelsenkirchen street scene is depicted as a rightly neglected side work, whereas the “real” Weill in the Threepenny Opera or the rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny . The material is constantly being updated in the productions. In 1997 the Landestheater Altenburg interpreted Street Scene, for example, in connection with the German post-reunification era. In more recent productions, the conflicts are often the result of the economic crisis, migration movements or capitalization.
literature
- Heinz Geuen (Ed.): From Zeitoper to Broadway Opera. Kurt Weill and the idea of musical theater. (= Sonus, 1). 1st edition. Edition Argus, Schliengen 1997.
- Stephen Hinton: Weill: Street Scene. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Piper, Munich 1997, pp. 718-721.
- Stephen Hinton: Weill's musical theater. Stages of reform. University of California Press, Berkeley 2001.
- Kim H. Kowalke: Kurt Weill and the Quest for American Opera. In: Hermann Danuser, Hermann Gottschewski (Ed.): Americanism, Americanism, Weill. The search for cultural identity in the modern age. 1st edition. Edition Argus, Schliengen 2003, pp. 283-302.
- Jürgen Schebera: Kurt Weill. 1900-1950. a biography in texts, pictures, etc. Documents. German publishing house for music, Leipzig 1990.
- Gisela Maria Schubert: A way to lose your reputation? About the German reception of Kurt Weill's “Street Scene”. In: Nils Grosch, Elmar Juchem: The reception of the Broadway musical in Germany. (= Publications of the Kurt Weill Society Dessau. 8). Waxmann, Münster / New York 2012.
- Study area singing and opera at the HMTM-Hannover: Street Scene. Edited by Theater and Media Hanover University of Music. (online, last checked on January 10, 2014)
- Ronald Taylor: Kurt Weill. Composer in a Divided World. Northeastern University Press, Boston 1991.
- Nancy Thuleen: Realism in Language and Music: Kurt Weill's Street Scene. University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1997. (online, last checked October 24, 2013)
- Kurt Weill: Street Scene. [Music printing]: an american opera; based on Elmer Rice's play / music by Kurt Weill. Book by Elmer Rice. New York 1948.
Web links
- Action by Street Scene on Opera-Guide landing page due to URL change currently not available
- Action statement at Zazzerino
- Street scene at the Kurt Weill Foundation
- Street scene at the Guide to Musical Theater
- Street Scene at Universal Edition
- kurt-weill.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schebera, 1990, pp. 250ff.
- ↑ opera.hmtm-hannover.de
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ Taylor, 1997, p. 253.
- ↑ See Musikdruck after Weill, 1948.
- ↑ See Thuleen, 1997.
- ↑ See ibid.
- ↑ See Hinton, 1997, p. 720.
- ↑ See Thuleen, 1997.
- ↑ See ibid.
- ↑ See Thuleen 1997.
- ^ Theodor W. Adorno: After a quarter of a century. In: Rolf Tiedermann, Klaus Schultz (eds.): Theodor W. Adorno: Collected writings. Volume 18: Musical writings V. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 548ff.
- ↑ See Schubert 1997, p. 102.
- ↑ See ibid.
- ↑ Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. April 2, 1997.
- ↑ Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. September 24, 2012.
- ↑ See Schubert 1997, p. 97.