Posts Tagged ‘Kurt Weill’

Winds of Change at the Komische Oper: ‘Xerxes’ and ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid The Komische Oper champions a populist approach through German-language productions and contemporary stage concepts that for some opera goers is synonymous with the most vexing of Regietheater. While the emphasis of the company’s founder Walter Felsenstein on living theater above musical purity remains a locally prized virtue, the house’s attendance rate sank […]

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The Seven Deadly Sins at City Ballet

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

New York City Ballet’s new staging of “The Seven Deadly Sins ,” which had its premiere at the company’s spring gala on May 11, puts Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s dark, sinister “ballet chanté” of 1933 into a new context: a tinsel-town soundstage, complete with unison hoofers in the grand finale. Choreographer Lynn Taylor-Corbett, whose credits include Broadway’s “Swing,” has essentially created a Cliff Notes version of this irony-laced yarn, dragging principal dancer Wendy Whelan and guest artist Patti Lapone through seven shallow scenes of human transgression and stripping the work of its brooding soul.

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