A jealous husband, gossiping neighbors, a woman about to give birth, young people who want to escape poverty... Street Scene portrays the inhabitants and dramas of a dilapidated New York neighborhood during a heat wave.

In setting playwright Elmer Rice’s play to music, Kurt Weill reveals the tragedy inherent in the daily life of lower-class New Yorkers between the wars. After moving to the United States in 1935 to escape Nazism, the composer created an “American opera” in 1947 that blends European influences and the Broadway musical into a fluid score.

This new production of Street Scene, performed by singers from the Paris Opera Academy, is presented at the MC93 in Bobigny, a new chapter in a long-standing partnership between the two institutions.