I am not an opera regular, so I arrived at this double bill with a certain curiosity about what it might feel like to encounter two works from very different European traditions, Germany and France, almost a century after they were written. This contemporary staging by Alejandro Bonatto offers an accessible entry point, presenting Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins alongside Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice.
Synopsis: In The Seven Deadly Sins, Anna travels through American cities in pursuit of enough money to build a house, negotiating the expectations of her family and the moral compromises required to survive. The Human Voice follows Elle through a single telephone conversation with a former lover, as an attempt at connection gradually exposes emotional devastation. Bonatto presents Anna and Elle as the same woman at different points in her life, creating a continuous psychological portrait.
The real experiment of the evening is not simply presenting two operas together but asking what happens when they are allowed to speak to each other. The transition from the crowded, outward-facing world of The Seven Deadly Sins to the intensely private world of The Human Voice gradually shifts the question from how a woman survives the world around her to what happens when there is no one left to answer her. The staging itself follows this trajectory. The physical world contracts as the evening progresses, moving from the fuller theatrical environment of the first opera into the much more contained world of the second, mirroring the protagonist’s narrowing emotional world.
There is also a fascinating gendered dimension to both works. Each places a woman in relation to men who are absent, demanding, judging or defining her circumstances. Anna makes decisions, but those decisions are shaped by economic survival and family expectation. Elle has a voice and a telephone, yet very little control over the person on the other end. Both characters are trying to establish themselves, to be heard and to find some form of connection or validation.
The production also retains something distinctly Brechtian in its approach to The Seven Deadly Sins. Handwritten cards declaring each of the seven sins appear throughout the piece, creating a visible reminder of the structure rather than allowing us to simply disappear into the story. This kind of device, associated with Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt, interrupts immersion and encourages the audience to remain conscious of what they are watching, creating space to evaluate the social and moral ideas being presented. The video projections announcing the different cities Anna travels through work similarly as theatrical signposts, locating us within her journey rather than attempting to create a fully realistic world. I found it interesting that this device largely disappears after the first opera, returning only briefly in The Human Voice.
The musical language of the two works creates another striking shift. The Seven Deadly Sins carries a theatrical, cabaret-inflected energy, with Weill’s sharp rhythms driving the action, while The Human Voice feels much more internal, with Poulenc’s lyrical score closely following the rhythms and emotional fluctuations of speech. Adrian Salinero and Elspeth Wilkes provide a remarkably steady musical foundation, with Kepa Malgorzata’s percussion adding further energy to the first piece. Harry Grigg and Phil Wilcox bring considerable theatricality to the first opera, moving between Anna’s parents and the men who enter her life with energy and humour.
Katherine McIndoe is the centre of the evening. Her voice has tremendous control, but it is her dramatic responsiveness that really carries the production. She moves between emotional registers with precision, and in The Human Voice her ability to sustain dramatic tension becomes particularly powerful.
The sparse set design is effective without overwhelming the performers. Adam King’s lighting remains minimal and supportive, helping establish rhythm and atmosphere around the music. I did wonder whether the video projections could have been developed further as a storytelling device, particularly given how effectively they establish the cities in the first opera. There was also an opportunity to create greater visual distinction between the two works through lighting and stage design. The Human Voice ultimately had the stronger impact for me, with its direction and staging feeling more immediately focused, while The Seven Deadly Sins took a little longer to settle into its rhythm.
I came into the theatre expecting to observe opera from the outside. Instead, I found myself thinking about opera as theatre, and about what happens when music, text and performance are allowed to carry psychological material in ways that spoken theatre cannot. For someone who does not regularly watch opera, this was a genuinely interesting evening and one that has left me wanting to explore the form further.
The Seven Deadly Sins and The Human Voice plays Friday 11th to Saturday 19th September 2026 at the Charing Cross Theatre in London.
Reviewer: Gaurav Singh Nijjer
Reviewed: 12th September 2026
North West End UK Rating: