Several Deadly Talents, Storm Large Goes Weill

Famed Kurt Weill Interpreter Seizes the Spotlight in Santa Barbara Symphony’s Take on ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’

Storm Large | Photo: Todd Huffman

The Santa Barbara Symphony’s programming agenda this weekend leans left, away from standard European fare and embracing an American lens. The musical menu boasts works of important Black composers of past and present, between late composer William Grant Still (From the Black Belt: Seven Little Pieces) and young composer Jesse Montgomery (Strum).

But the real centerpiece is the German-born but strongly American-themed masterpiece from the classic creative team of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, in the form of their mythic masterwork The Seven Deadly Sins. Here, the dynamic duo brings a Biblical framework to the American experiment, well-salted with their Weimar Republic angular beauty.

Speaking of which, the challenging central role of Anna will be played by none other than Storm Large, a larger-than-life serious/punk/kitsch artist who has become a go-to star of this salty show around the world. Also in the Portland-based singer’s bio are adventures in theater, punk, and work with popular kitsch-meister’s Pink Martini.

“Storm Large brings a magnetic presence to Weill’s masterpiece, making Anna’s journey both deeply personal and universally resonant,” said S.B. Symphony maestro Nir Kabaretti. Also joining in is the respected vocal foursome the Hudson Shad Quartet, as Greek chorus.

I recently connected with Large, in advance of her Sin-ful appearance at the Granada.

You performed in Santa Barbara with Pink Martini back in 2015. Have you performed here in other contexts, or had other local links?

No, but I’ve performed in Ojai several times and always stop and have a gawp at your gorgeous town.

The Seven Deadly Sins is a prized and special piece of musical theater from the Brecht/Weill catalogue. Can you tell me about your experience with it?

Yes. I absolutely hated it when I first was asked to perform it. So Teutonic and dry, angular and narrative, [and] no juicy, emotional histrionics to wrap my dramatic throat around. Once I had really gotten inside the piece, though, I started to really get the seething and brutal nature that Brecht carved into that world. He showed his disgust with capitalism and loathing of what he imagined to be American hedonism and excess — even though he and Weill had never been to America yet.

It’s a work that requires a lot out of the central performer, in terms of multiple characters, singing and dancing, and other complexities. I know you have been attached to this piece on many occasions — including at your Carnegie Hall debut in 2013 — is it both a challenging and uniquely rewarding piece for you to perform?

It really has become one of my favorite things to perform. The humor in the horror and the grace in the grotesque are such a fun mental and physical challenge for me, embodying all of it and telling the whole story to the audience, all without big, emotional cues telling them how to feel about it. This will be my [twentieth-plus] time as Anna, and I still find new things in her to bring out.

The Seven Deadly Sins was written in 1933, as the Nazi machine was gearing up for destruction, but it seems so fresh. Do you feel that Weill and Brecht created art that is somehow timeless and reaches out across cultures and sociopolitical realities?

Yes, indeed. Sadly, humanity seems to repeat history in eerily similar ways. It almost seems scripted. Art is the truest depiction of history, I think, because we aren’t trying to be right or trying to shut anyone down. We’re just interpreting the world at this or that moment, and channel all the energy of the time into something that can maybe make sense of it all.

Does Weill speak to you and your musical being, in that, like you, he oscillates between classical, jazz, pop of his day, and other genres, without being stuck in one place?

I could only compare myself to Weill in our genre fluidity. The man was a brilliant and rabid creator and distiller of chunky, insanely on-point human truths. He’s like a Bukowski or Lenny Bruce kind of composer. I’m more of a spontaneous, meaty responder to music. A nerdy, nomadic, truth-seeking tourist.

I was just listening to the latest item in your discography, the lovely and fresh Christmas album A Joyful Noise. You really have such a range — pitch-wise and style-wise. Can you give me a short list of some of your major influences or inspirations?

Theater-wise, it is kinda rock heavy — Ian Gillan from Jesus Christ Superstar [and] Deep Purple; and Tommy with Roger Daltrey and Tina Turner; Rocky Horror; Hair. I barely liked any musical theater as a kid but am currently seeking out musical theater stuff that I might like, now that I’m in my more mature — in air quotes — time in my career.

In music, I love punk rock and goth, metal, hip hop, jazz, and even gospel. My influences are mostly artists who feel really authentic and honest to me, not phony, manipulative garbage that sounds like it was written by Pepsi. I’m all over the place, genre-wise.

When you decided to launch into the world of music, did you have a particular vision of how your career and direction might turn out, and how does that compare with the fate of your story so far?

Never in my life would 20-year-old me have believed that 55-year-old me, in a lead-up to a performance with a symphony, an interviewer would care enough to ask that, and that I would get to answer with this long-ass, winded way to say: I am beyond surprised and so grateful that I am still here.

What projects do you have coming up that you’re especially excited about?

I’m working on several things, musical and literary, and have zero idea what they may turn into — and I love it that way.

Santa Barbara Symphony performs The Seven Deadly Sins at The Granada Theatre (1214 State St.) on Saturday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 23, at 3 p.m. See ticketing.granadasb.org/overview/19060.