Beguiled by Weill

Street Scene may well be Kurt Weill’s most successful work from his American period, but seeing it in as good a production as the Opera Group’s at the Young Vic was cause for both enjoyment and reservations. In the next couple of weeks it will be touring to Basingstoke, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Hull, so plenty of people will have and should take the chance of seeing it. I’d go again if I were nearer one of those places, for Weill is always at least interesting, though not always quite in the way that he wanted to be — he intended, like Brecht, that we should be filled with indignation about many of the scenes he presents, but we’re much more likely to be beguiled by catchy melodies. Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes, the rather leaden librettists of Street Scene, only intermittently led Weill to bring characters to life, or to create atmosphere.