After faltering early attempts‚ European rec­ognition of Kurt Weill’s ‘Broadway opera’ Street Scene really began with the joint Scottish Opera/ENO production of 1989. Continental Europe then saw it in a 1994 production‚ which Houston Grand Opera shared with Berlin and Ludwigshafen. Where the British production produced two CD recordings (Decca‚ 8/91; TER Classics‚ 11/91)‚ it is the 1994 joint­production that is preserved on this DVD. The opera was the most ambitious product of Weill’s American years and a kind of Porgy and Bess transferred to the slum tenements of New York during the Depression. Like Gershwin’s opera‚ it mixes genuine operatic writing with unashamedly popular numbers. There are splendid ensembles such as the ‘Ice Cream Septet’‚ fine set numbers such as Sam Kaplan’s brooding ‘Lonely House’‚ and wonderful popular numbers as epitomised by the jitterbug dance number ‘Moon­Faced‚ Starry­Eyed’. It’s essentially a team opera‚ with a vast number of roles‚ portraying the ups and downs of urban life including childbirth and death. Its climax is the murder of Anna Maurrant by her husband‚ jealous of an affair of which the neighbours‚ led by the bitchy Mrs Jones‚ are gossiping. Ashley Putnam plays Anna here – visually too young for the role‚ perhaps‚ but vocally outstanding in her solo numbers. Teri Hansen initially sounds a shade constricted as her daughter Rose‚ but she is tender enough in her duet with Kip Wilborn as her lover Sam. Marc Embree is suitably menacing as husband Frank‚ Janice Felty a strong Emma‚ and Anthony Mee a delightful roly­poly Neapolitan. An undoubted star of the production is designer Adrienne Lobel‚ against whose magnificently solid and realistic set the action unfolds. Another is James Holmes‚ a Weill expert who brings out the score’s darker‚ dramatic moments as much as its unashamed romanticism and jazz­inflected numbers. Seeing the opera afresh in this production impresses again what a wonderful work it is – convincing both for its extended operatic writing and also for its marvellous tunes. Why it remains so much less well known than Porgy and Bess is not always easy to fathom.