By the time that trail-blazing duo of the Weimar Republic, Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht, collaborated on their final project, The Seven Deadly Sins, Hitler had come to power and the Jewish Weill and Marxist Brecht had both left Germany in haste. Their relationship had always been fractious, but by 1933 it was in terminal decline, Brecht threatening to kick “that phony Richard Strauss” down the stairs.
Weill was to come to terms with capitalist America more readily than Brecht, writing a series of popular musicals for Broadway with other collaborators. But in Seven Deadly Sins Brecht’s pen is still dripping with venom as he excoriates the continent’s sleazy, materialistic values, the biblical septet of vices here given a contemporary twist.
