The current offering from Operavision on Youtube is the 2020 production by Opera North of Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins livestreamed from Leeds Playhouse in November 2020.  It was Pay to View then but now it’s available for free until October.

My main interest was to see Wallis Giunta as Anna I.  I’ve known for years that this is her favourite role but I’ve not before seen her sing it in a fully staged version with orchestra though she did do a very good semi-staged version with the TSO and Jenn Nichols a few years ago.  This version was way grittier and therefore, I think, truer to Brecht/Weill.  The no-holds-barred English translation of the Brecht original by Michael Feingold was part of that but so was Gary Clarke’s choreography energetically, nay aggressively, danced by Shelley Eva Haden.  It was also very dark (as in low light levels) which likely would have worked better for a live performance than a stream.  Interestingly it’s directed (Gary Clarke again) with regard for COVID social distancing rules but I was completely unaware of that watching.

Anyway, Wallis is very good indeed.  Her singing is solid and expressive and her acting is well adapted for the camera.  She really gets this idiom.  She’s well backed up by the quartet of male singers who make up the family back home in Louisiana.  The Opera North orchestra under James Holmes; positioned behind the stage action, sound grittier than the TSO too.

The filming was directed by Jonathan Haswell and he does a pretty decent job though I did find the dark set quite hard to watch at times, even on a large screen.  That aside, video quality is good and sound quality is excellent.  It’s really not a bad way of spending 35 minutes.