This is a first in two important ways. It’s the first commercial recording of The Seven Deadly Sins in English – the translation by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman is used – and the booklet-note states that Marianne Faithfull “is singing the part of Anna I an octave lower”. This suggests a whole new world of possibilities – Domingo as Boris, perhaps, or Alagna as Philip II.
Marianne Faithfull’s merits as a singing-actress include the full battery of the chanteuse-diseuse’s ability to shift between speech and song so that one can never really say exactly where one begins and the other ends. With such a growling Anna, the lighter moments of Weill’s score begin to sound even sleazier. Even compared with Lenya or Gisela May, both of whom used a transposed scoring, Faithfull sounds very harsh and at the climactic moments in “Lust” and “Envy” she resorts to a shout. As in everything she does, there is never a moment’s doubt about her conviction and dedication.
The songs from other Brecht-Weill pieces that fill up the CD are in translations by Michael Feingold and Frank McGuinness. Faithfull has often sung these in her recitals, and she has appeared as Jenny in a production of The Threepenny Opera, so they too have their own theatrical feel. Hudson Shad have recorded Die sieben Todsunden before, with Angelina Reaux and Kurt Masur on Teldec (12/94), the most extreme contrast with this CD, as it’s the most operatic version of the score, just as this is the most purely cabaret. Not for Weill purists, but highly enjoyable nevertheless.'