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The Seven Deadly Sins (1933)

Choreography by George Balanchine

The Seven Deadly Sins (Die sieben Todsünden) is a 1933 "ballet chanté" — a sung ballet — by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht, commissioned by Boris Kochno and Edward James. It premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 7 June 1933, produced, directed and choreographed by George Balanchine, with the singing role of Anna I taken by Lotte Lenya and the dancing role of Anna II by Tilly Losch.

What is danced

The article gives almost no description of actual step-vocabulary or technique. What it does establish is the work's structural division of labour between two performers embodying one split character: Anna I is 'the principal vocal role' who sings throughout, while Anna II, 'the dancer, is heard only infrequently' — she carries the piece's physical action while Anna I narrates and comments. The satire section notes that within the fiction Anna II is required 'to perform as a cabaret dancer just to please her clientele,' which places at least one sin-scene inside a cabaret-performance frame, but no steps, holds or stylistic markers are described.

Context

The work was made in Paris in mid-1933, immediately after Brecht and Weill fled Nazi Germany, and was Weill and Brecht's last major collaboration. Balanchine choreographed and directed it the same year he was establishing himself in Western Europe before his move to the United States; the commission's condition that James's wife Tilly Losch 'dance opposite her lookalike' Lotte Lenya (who sang) is what generated the split-personality Anna I/Anna II structure before Brecht was even engaged to write the libretto.

Staging history

The Paris premiere transferred to London within weeks, opening at the Savoy Theatre as 'Anna-Anna' on 28 June 1933 in an impromptu translation by Lenya. It was revived with New York City Ballet in 1958 (Lenya again singing, Allegra Kent dancing, in English), and has since been restaged repeatedly with different choreographers attached each time — Pina Bausch (Wuppertal, 1976), Maguy Marin (Lyon Opéra-Ballet, 1987), Will Tuckett for the Royal Ballet (2007), Lynne Taylor-Corbett for New York City Ballet (2011), and others including Jennifer Nichols, Gary Clarke and Ann Yee in later productions, alongside opera-house and concert versions that sometimes drop the dance role or reframe it entirely.

How to watch it

Watch the relationship between the two Annas rather than either performer alone: Anna I sings and largely directs, Anna II dances and is mostly silent, and the drama lies in whether the audience reads them as sisters or as one divided self. Because the choreography has been reinvented by each production's own choreographer, there is no fixed 'authentic' step vocabulary to check a staging against — the constant is the sung/danced split itself.

Structure

  1. Scene Prologue
    Anna I introduces the sisters and their plan to earn money for a house on the Mississippi.
  2. Scene Faulheit / Sloth
    First sin scene, city unnamed.
  3. Scene Stolz / Pride
    Set in Memphis; Anna I scolds Anna II for pride that interferes with earning money.
  4. Scene Zorn / Wrath
    Set in Los Angeles; Anna II's anger at injustice is checked by Anna I.
  5. Scene Völlerei / Gluttony
    Set in Philadelphia.
  6. Scene Unzucht / Lust
    Set in Boston; Anna II is required to perform to satisfy clients' desires.
  7. Scene Habsucht / Greed
    Set in Tennessee (later Baltimore in posthumous versions).
  8. Scene Neid / Envy
    Set in San Francisco; Anna II envies those who indulge freely in what she must forgo.
  9. Scene Epilogue
    The sisters return home to the little house; Anna II answers with resignation, 'Yes, Anna.'

Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.

Credits

  • composer: Kurt Weill

Questions

Who danced the original 1933 production?
Tilly Losch danced the role of Anna II opposite Lotte Lenya, who sang Anna I; the production was choreographed and directed by George Balanchine, with mise en scène by Caspar Neher.
Why is one character split into two performers?
The commission from Edward James required that his wife, dancer Tilly Losch, perform opposite her lookalike Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife; this contractual condition shaped Brecht's libretto into a split-personality plot before he was even hired to write it.
Is this ballet danced throughout, or mostly sung?
It is mostly sung. Anna I is the principal vocal role and sings continuously; Anna II, the dancer, is 'heard only infrequently,' so the danced material is concentrated in her physical performance while the singer narrates.
Has the choreography stayed the same across revivals?
No. Major productions list a different choreographer nearly every time — Balanchine in 1933, Pina Bausch in 1976, Maguy Marin in 1987, Will Tuckett in 2007, Lynne Taylor-Corbett in 2011, and others — so the dance content has been reinvented repeatedly rather than preserved as a fixed choreographic text.
This entry was written from “The Seven Deadly Sins (ballet chanté)” on English Wikipedia (revision 1347113300), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. The link points at the exact revision this text was written from, so it shows the words we actually used rather than whatever the article says today. Credits and premiere data come from Wikidata (CC0), cited per field.
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