Street Scenes

Kurt Weill, son of a Jewish cantor, was famous in Weimar Germany for his collaborations with Berthold Brecht (including THE THREE PENNY OPERA). They were brilliant for their darkly imaginative music, lyrics and biting social commentary. Weill escaped to the United States in 1933, where he reinvented himself for the Broadway theater. STREET SCENE, his first American opera, is set in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in New York City. It conveys the same ironic vision of class and capitalism that pervades Weill's German work, but the melodies are freer and jazzier, influenced by Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein. Swiss conductor Urs Leonhardt Steiner, one of the few classical artists to record a platinum-selling album in his native country, offers an interpretation of Weill's work that is close to the composer's intention.