The Seven Deadly Sins

The sisters Anna 1 and Anna 2 are sent on a seven-year journey to various North American cities by their family to earn money for ‘a small house near the Mississippi’. During their journey, they are tempted by the seven biblical deadly sins. Gradually, they give up their dreams and ideals eventually to return to Louisiana to their family, completely disillusioned.

Kurt Weill composed the ballet chanté Die sieben Todsünden, based on a text by Bertolt Brecht, in 1933 in his Paris exile. Premièred in the ballet version of Georges Balanchine at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 7 June 1933, it quickly became one of his best-known works. The music plays with popular American music styles of the twenties such as tango, foxtrot, polka or barbershop. Weill and Brecht perfectly ironize the petty bourgeois double standards of each society willing to sacrifice their values for the sake of financial gain. 


This edition is meant for concerto performances by schools and amateur music societies only. Stage performances – of the complete work or of parts thereof – shall be permitted only in exceptional cases with prior written approval of Schott Music Mainz GmbH & Co. KG. The same applies to live recordings and later radio and television broadcasts of them, other films including audiovisual recordings (videotapes, video discs and any other audio / video recordings) as well as any kind of audio recordings.