THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE HUMAN VOICE
Charing Cross Theatre
★★★★
“an elegant and remarkably economical production that makes the two works feel like parts of the same tragic story”
Two very different operas become a compelling portrait of one woman in this elegant double bill. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins follows Anna as she travels through the cities of America, earning enough money for her parents back home. In Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, a woman faces the end of a love affair during a single, devastating telephone conversation. In director Alejandro Bonatto’s production, the woman at the centre of The Human Voice becomes another chapter in Anna’s story, with both roles performed by soprano Katherine McIndoe.
The decision to stage The Seven Deadly Sins without its ballet element, particularly the second Anna, inevitably reduces the sense of duality at the heart of the original conception. At the same time, it places greater emphasis on the sung narrative, with the compacted musical sequences driving the action forward. The result is less about two versions of Anna in dialogue with one another and more about following a single woman’s journey.
Continuing with the scaled-down production, Anna has only her mother, baritone Phil Wilcox, and father, tenor Harry Grigg, with the pair also taking on the roles of her lovers. Both bring a strong sense of theatricality, with Wilcox’s deliberately camp, drag-housewife quality as Anna’s mother particularly adding to the humour, while Grigg brings an equally assured presence as her father. Their performances bring out both the comedy and darker undercurrents of Anna’s journey.
The connection with The Human Voice is an imaginative one. Cocteau’s central character is simply ‘Elle’, allowing the production to make its own connection between the two women. The handwritten cards naming each sin continue into the second opera, where ‘Love’ becomes an additional ‘sin’. This was not part of the original conception of The Human Voice, but here it provides a neat dramatic link. Having sacrificed so much of herself in pursuit of money and survival, Anna has eventually staked everything that remains on one relationship. When that collapses, there is nowhere else for her to turn.
McIndoe faces an extraordinary vocal and dramatic challenge across both works. Weill demands incredible diction and enunciation, with the words cutting through the music and carrying the sharpness of the text, while Poulenc allows for a much more lyrical vocal line. The contrast moves effectively from the theatrical energy and humour of the first opera to the increasing intimacy of the second. The moment when McIndoe comes to sit on the edge of the stage is particularly effective, stripping away some of the theatricality and allowing Anna’s vulnerability to come fully to the fore. Her performance brings out the wit, humour and sensuality of the first opera, as well as the growing desperation and heartbreak of the second.
The production design is economical but expressive. Grey drapes surround the stage, with shadow work involving Anna’s parents behind the leather settee where she often performs, suggesting their ever-present influence and the world she has left behind. Two black grand pianos face each other across the rear of the stage, with percussion hidden between them until the curtain is removed later in the first opera. Anna’s sweet dress when she leaves Louisiana gives way to a silky two-piece shortie pyjama set and black negligee gown, with her jewellery charting the material rewards of her new life. For The Human Voice, the mirror, percussion and one piano disappear and the telephone emerges from beneath the sofa. The physical world has contracted, just as Anna’s life has, while the older Anna’s cream silk pyjamas create a visual link between the two works.
The musicians handle the contrasting scores with equal assurance. Adrian Salinero and Elspeth Wilkes share the piano parts in The Seven Deadly Sins, with Kepa Malgorzata providing percussion, while Wilkes takes the piano for The Human Voice, with Salinero joining for one movement on flute. Weill’s sharp-edged theatricality and rhythmic energy give way to Poulenc’s more fluid and lyrical score, reflecting the very different moods of the two operas.
Ultimately, this is more than a pairing of two very different operas. By presenting The Human Voice as another chapter in Anna’s story, Bonatto creates a portrait of a woman who spends the first part sacrificing herself in pursuit of money and survival, only to find herself with nothing left when the relationship she has staked everything on comes to an end. It is an elegant and remarkably economical production that makes the two works feel like parts of the same tragic story.
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE HUMAN VOICE
Charing Cross Theatre
Reviewed on 12th September 2026
by Ellen Cheshire
Photography by Adam King
