City Varieties, Leeds – until 21st June 2018
Reviewed By Dawn Smallwood
4****
Opera North and West Yorkshire Playhouse have brought Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill to the City Varieties in Leeds. This is another one of their collaboration following the success of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods back in 2016. Berlin to Broadway pays homage to Weill, a German composer (1900 – 1950), and his musical journey takes one from its Berlin’s Kabarett style cafes to the big stage of New York’s Broadway.
Under the direction of the legendary Giles Havergal, the audience are taken on a journey and are treated to a variety of songs which are written by numerous lyrists and Weill’s musical compositions. The compositions include the popular The Threepenny Opera which is a play known for its ballads. The ensemble narrates chronologically Weill’s key milestones of his life in between songs.
The first part of the voyage begins at Berlin where a number of songs are sung from The Threepenny Opera including the popular The Ballad of Mack the Knife and other songs from other works such as The Little Mahagonny, Happy End and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The stage is set cabaret style with then its avant-garde ambience in its Berlin’s cafes during the Weimar era and its eventual social and political decline from end of the 1920s to the early 1930s.
Weill works are associated for its political and social satirical content and with his populist views influences. With this in mind including his Jewish heritage and his denouncement by the Nazi party, he and his wife fled Germany in 1933 and eventually emigrated to the United States.
The voyage’s part two features works that he composed in his later years in New York City and set for the Broadway stage. Songs are sung from Street Scene, Johnny Johnson, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus and his final composition Lost in the Stars, a tragic musical.
Berlin to Broadway, set in the beautiful City Varieties music hall, is put well together with Catherine Morgan’s staging and Tim Skelly’s lighting. The digital screen in the background on stage enhances the voyage including still images and introductions to the songs that are sung.
It stars an ensemble of singers from the Chorus of Opera North who perform to the highest standard. With a piano accompaniment on stage and Martin Pickard’s musical direction the ensemble puts on an excellent show and celebrates Weill’s versatile musical accomplishments. Amy J Payne’s emotive Surabaya Johnny from Happy End at end of Part One is one of the outstanding highlights. The soprano sings the musical number with such conviction and emotion which makes one think more about Weill’s musical journey.
With the reprisal of songs from The Threepenny Opera at the end of Part 2, Weill leaves a mark which many musicians and singers from popular and classical backgrounds aspire to and make such songs famous. Opera North and West Yorkshire Playhouse have shown a thorough commitment to celebrate his musical ingenuity and also him being “a composer for the theatre” with an intimate cabaret style production with show stopping songs.