Opera North / Street Scene: Theatre Royal

On a stiflingly hot summer’s day in New York, a family is pushed to breaking point. Frank is angry at a world that’s changing too fast, his daughter Rose longs for a better life away from the squalor of the city, and his unhappy wife Anna struggles with a terrible secret that could tear them all apart… As the heat builds, the tension erupts into violence and their lives are changed forever.
 
Weill’s richly-varied score blends the European operatic tradition with the music of golden-age Broadway. Soaring arias and duets rub shoulders with jazz and the jitterbug, and Puccini shakes hands with Gershwin. With numbers such as ‘Lonely House’ and ‘Moon-faced, Starry-eyed’, it’s little wonder that Street Scene was awarded Best Original Score at the very first Tony Awards in 1947.