The Royal Opera House will stream Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins and Mahagonny Songspiel live from Covent Garden on 9 April.
Jette Parker Young Artist Isabelle Kettle will direct, following her directorial debut at ROH with Susanna in The Linbury Theatre in March 2020. Michael Papadopoulos will conduct the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, and the creative team includes choreographer and movement director Julia Cheng, designer Lizzie Clachan, lighting designer James Farncombe and dramaturg Uzma Hameed.
The Seven Deadly Sins, Weill’s ballet chanté, follows two aspects of one central character, Anna—performed by mezzo-soprano Stephanie Wake-Edwards and dance artist Jonadette Carpio—as she embarks on a journey to fame, encountering a succession of obstacles which force her to confront the double standards of modern society. Tenors Filipe Manu and Egor Zhuravskii, baritone Dominic Sedgwick and bass Blaise Malaba play the family, are joined by dancer Thomasin Gülgeç.
Mezzo-soprano Kseniia Nikolaieva plays Bessie in Mahagonny Songspiel, which draws on Julia Cheng’s background in hip-hop, contemporary dance and physical theatre.
Kettle said, “Brecht and Weill's radical collaborations are such rich material through which to explore the crises of contemporary culture that have been exposed in recent years, and in bringing together this team of extraordinary artists, I hope to honour their spirit of innovation and critique.”