It is not surprising that Kurt Weill’s Street Scene has never been performed on Broadway since its opening in 1947, despite winning a Tony for Best Score. The huge cast of over 30 roles, plus chorus, made it commercially unviable, though regularly performed by opera companies around the world. Weill, as a recent immigrant to New York, was fascinated with his adopted city and community, wanting to embrace not only the new language of English, but also the musical language of the jazz and blues rhythms that were to create a new American genre – musical theatre. A composer ahead of his times, Street Scene offers a sublime score but it is not an easy work to stage, dramatically requiring both strong acting and dance skills as well as operatic singing. Many of the characters are speaking roles, some require trained classical singing, while others, including the ensemble, need to dance. 

Cast members of Street Scene, Queensland Conservatorium. Photo © Justin Ma

This appears to be a marvellous work for a conservatorium to stage, offering...