Street Scene is an American opera by Kurt Weill (music), Langston Hughes (lyrics), and Elmer Rice (book).

Musically and culturally, even dramatically, the work inhabits the mid-ground between Weill's Threepenny Opera (1928) and Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (1957).

[3] Weill wrote: It's my opinion that we can and will develop a musical-dramatic form in this country (America) but I don't think it will be called 'opera', or that it will grow out of the opera which has become a thing separate from the commercial theater, dependent upon other means than box-office appeal for its continuance.

The two chose Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes to "lift the everyday language of the people into a simple, unsophisticated poetry", as Weill put it.

To create music that would portray the ethnic melting pot of characters described in Rice's book, Weill travelled to neighborhoods in New York, watching children at play and observing New Yorkers.

Hughes took Weill to Harlem nightclubs to hear the newest musical idioms of black American jazz and blues.

Hughes wrote: "The resulting song was composed in a national American Negro idiom; but a German, or someone else, could sing it without sounding strange or out of place.

The production was directed by Charles Friedman, with choreography by Anna Sokolow, and produced by Dwight Deere Wiman and the Playwrights' Company (Maxwell Anderson; S. N. Behrman; Elmer Rice; Robert E. Sherwood; Sidney Howard).

The show featured a starry cast of principals and walk-ons, including Rosemary Ashe, Maria Friedman, Alec McCowen, Matt Zimmerman, Kevin Colson, Steven Berkoff and Elaine Paige.

[14] A production by the English National Opera at the London Coliseum Theatre in 1989 included Catherine Zeta-Jones as Mae Jones.

[17] The Opera Group, Young Vic, and Watford Palace Theatre gave the first UK production in 20 years in July 2008,[18] winning the Evening Standard Award 2008 for Best Musical.

In 2011, Street Scene was performed by the Opera/Music Theatre Workshop of Southeastern Louisiana University at the Pottle Music Auditorium,[19] and, in German, by the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding and the Munich Radio Orchestra, led by Ulf Schirmer.

[20] The Semper Oper in Dresden produced the work in June 2011,[21] and The Opera Group presented the first performance in Austria in October that year.

The show portrays the ordinary romances, squabbles and gossips of the neighbors, as the mounting tensions involving the Maurrant family eventually build into a tragedy of epic proportions.

Emma Jones and Greta Fiorentino lament the incredible heatwave that is gripping New York ("Ain't It Awful, the Heat?").

He mentions that he is going on a business trip to New Haven tomorrow, and argues with his wife about Rose not being home yet ("She Shouldn't Be Staying out Nights").

Kaplan uses the example of the Hildebrand family who live upstairs, who are run by a struggling single mother who is unable to pay the rent, to illustrate his point.

Rose, however, sticks to her convictions, and sings a Cavatina about how she will always choose true love over showy promises ("What Good Would the Moon Be?").

He heads back upstairs, and as Rose is leaving, she passes young Mae Jones and her suitor, Dick McGann.

After they dance on the sidewalk, they passionately run upstairs into the house, after saying a drunken good-night to Rose, who has returned from phoning the doctor.

Sam laments the terrible strife of living in the slums, but Rose calms him down by reminding him of a poem he once read her ("Remember that I Care").

Dr. Wilson leaves the house, telling Buchanan to let his wife get plenty of rest, and Dick McGann and Mae Jones share a much less passionate goodbye in the cold light of day than their energetic exchanges the night before.

Willie Maurrant, Charlie and Mary Hildebrand, Henry's daughter Grace, and other local children play an energetic game ("Catch Me if You Can"), which ends in a large scuffle.

As Sankey hurries upstairs he passes Sam coming out of the house, who looks up at the window and sees Mrs. Maurrant pulling the shades shut.

Sam sits on the stoop and reads a book, as James Henry, a city-marshall, and Fred Cullen, his assistant, appear.

They call Henry Davis up and tell him that they are here to dispossess the Hildebrand family, and that since she has made no arrangements to have the furniture taken away, they will have to dump it on the sidewalk.

Panic ensues, as Maurrant exits the house, covered in blood, and points his revolver at the crowd of gatherers in order to make his escape.

Mrs. Maurrant's body is brought out of the house on a stretcher and taken to the hospital and the citizens rush after the ambulance, as Rose, quietly crying in Sam's arms, follows.

Scene 2: Mid-afternoon, the same day Two young nursemaids appear at the house and sing about the scandal of the murder that has already spread around the city, as they try to quiet the children they are looking after ("Lullaby").

Mrs. Fiorentino, Mrs. Olsen and Mrs. Jones appear and immediately begin gossiping about Rose and Easter hanging around on the street late last night ("Ain't It Awful, the Heat?