Bernstein and Weill on the Shortcomings of the American Dream

In their different musical styles and forms, these two works offer a critique of the American Dream in its endless pursuit of material affluence, and how that impacts upon personal relationships and morality. Where the Bernstein is a sombre dissection of a marriage turned sour in the 1950s, Weill and Brecht’s ‘sung ballet’ is a sardonic take on how its protagonist, Anna, navigates public life and social mores around seven American cities in contriving to lead an honest existence and scrape enough money together to build a house for her and her family. As a sort of paradoxically-framed allegory, values in 1930s capitalist society have become so warped that Anna’s heroic countercultural stance in a variety of situations are interpreted through the lens of bourgeois hypocrisy as exemplifying the seven deadly sins of traditional Catholic teaching. Of the two pieces, the latter came off the better in Opera Prelude’s debut production at London’s Holland Park, directed by Valeria Perboni. The wooden boxes on stage that created a sense of place and period for Trouble in Tahiti, and an obvious visual analogy for Sam and Dinah’s suffocatingly confined, lifeless marriage, were rather surplus to requirements for The Seven Deadly Sins where they were empty, since the soloists did so stylish a job of establishing the mood of Weill’s jazz-inspired sarcasm in their singing and acting. Stephanie Wake Edwards’s unflinching, pointedly sung Anna was partnered with her balletic alter ego Anna II in Yanki Yau’s sprightly and efficient movements. The all-male accompanying vocal quartet – constituting her mother (really scored for bass!) father and two brothers – brought a certain raw edge to their passages, beyond the easy-going warmth either of barbershop music or Biedermeier part-song repertoire, even as they owe something to both. In Trouble in Tahiti the two principals formed a well-contrasted pair: Alexandria Moon’s Dinah versatile in her despair, nostalgia, and peevish frustration, compared with the austere control of Jack Holton’s emotionally indifferent and uncommitted Sam – the personification of today’s mindless, vacuous manosphere as much as that of the 1950s, in his obsession with business success and the gym over human contact and flourishing. Although well blended amongst themselves, the trio offering an ironic commentary on that sorry marriage were rather swamped by the plangent tone of the Opera Prelude Orchestra. Attentive musical direction by Lewis Gaston and lively interaction from the instrumentalists – one to a part and so truly an ensemble of soloists rather than a more homogenised and numerous orchestra – cohered better with the vocalists in Seven Deadly Sins where all concerned sounded as though they enjoyed its idiom rather more, and were more persuasive in it, than in Bernstein’s watered down jazz and drawn out moping chords. Curtis Rogers Trouble in Tahiti Composer and Libretto: Leonard Bernstein Sam – Jack Holton; Dinah – Alexandria Moon; mezzo soprano – Clover Kayne; tenor – Alex Haigh; baritone – Khaled Issa The Seven Deadly Sins Composer: Kurt Weill Libretto: Bertolt Brecht Anna – Stephanie Wake Edwards; Anna II (dancer) – Yanki Yau; Father – Xavier Hetherington; Brothers – Alex Haigh & Jack Holton; Mother – Peter Lidbetter Director – Valeria Perboni; Choreographer – Monica Nicolaides; Video designer – Ryan Davies; Designer – Peiyao Wang; Lighting designer – Jacob Gowler; Conductor – Lewis Gaston; Opera Prelude Orchestra Opera Holland Park, London, UK, 20 August 2026 All photos © Julian Guidera