Manhattan School of Music (MSM) Opera Theater's spring production, which opened on April 30, is a fine revival of "Street Scene," the rich, varied 1947 Broadway musical by composer Kurt Weill, playwright Elmer Rice (book), and poet-and recent gay ancestor-Langston Hughes (lyrics), after Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1929 play about life, love and death in a crowded New York City tenement, in short American verismo.

In Weill's score, realized by conductor Hal France and a large, winning company, Broadway and jazz influences jostle Italian opera and reminiscences of Weill's earlier works, written in Germany. Director Jay Lesenger coordinated the disparate parts of this effort superbly, making it always ring true. Steven Capone designed the impressive setting, three stories of a tenement building and the street before it, and Helen Rodgers contributed realistic Depression-era costumes.

In "Street Scene," under the watchful eyes of gossiping, clucking neighbors, Anna Maurrant, a married woman, and her lover, Steve Sanky, also married, are caught together and killed by Anna's husband, Frank. The Maurrants' daughter, Rose, pursues a tentative relationship with Sam Kaplan, another neighbor, but they part when harsh reality intervenes. For the others, life goes on as it did before and, no doubt, newcomers will soon occupy the Maurrants' old apartment.

Highest vocal honors go to Andrea Arias-Martin as Anna, clearly projecting her full lyric soprano and conveying the gentleness of her character. Arias-Martin's Anna shares her story, as a disillusioned dreamer, in "Somehow I Could Never Believe" and proudly praises her young son, Willie, in "A Boy Like You." Arthur Miller (yes, really) offers a strong portrayal of roughhewn, conservative Frank-picture Archie Bunker as a murderous baritone-his solo, "Let Things Be Like They Always Was" and a later trio ominously hinting at the tragedy ahead.

Soprano Devon Guthrie, as Rose, lyrically airs her own dreams in "What Good Would the Moon Be," tenor James Rodgers, as Sam, dulcetly contemplates their claustrophobic existence in the score's 'hit tune,' "Lonely House," and the two join voices for impassioned, Puccinian duets, "Remember That I Care," "We'll Go Away Together" and "Don't Forget the Lilac Bush," quoting great gay poet Walt Whitman's "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd," with the lilac bush as their symbol of hope.

Arias-Martin, Guthrie and Miller have a family spat in the turbulent "There'll Be Trouble," in a scene out of Italian verismo opera and, after the murders, Rose, reproachful, and Frank, remorseful, have a farewell confrontation, "I Loved Her, Too," with the neighbors looking on.

Numerous performers and vignettes merit mention. Frederick Voegele and Laura Bohn, as the Fiorentinos, Aaron Theno and Daryl Freedman, as the Olsens, Carla Jablonski and Dan Kempson as the Joneses, and Jorell Williams, as Henry Davis, the handyman celebrate the joys of ice cream on a sweltering day in an amusing grand opera ensemble parody, complete with romanza for tenor Voegele, cadenza from soprano Bohn, and chorus of "Hallelujahs." Jablonski, Bohn and Freedman cattily comment on Anna's affair in "Get a Load of That." Williams limns an optimistic vision and Warren Carr explains an expectant father's nerves in their respective jazzy numbers, "I Got a Marble and a Star" and, with obbligato from the neighborhood women, "When a Woman Has a Baby." Carolyn Amaradio and Jacob Lewis Smith, as the Joneses' freewheeling daughter and her beau, dance a hot jitterbug, choreographed by Francis Patrelle, in "Moon Faced, Starry Eyed."

Shelley Wade, as Jenny, pays joyous tribute to a high school diploma "Wrapped in a Ribbon and Tied in a Bow." Markus Goldberg, as Willie, cavorts with his playmates in "Catch Me if You Can." The neighborhood folk comment on the murders and mourn as a community in "The Woman Who Lived Up There." Leona Carney and Jazimina MacNeil, as earthy nursemaids, rock their charges to sleep and trade observations about the scandal in a most unusual "Lullaby."

Paul Shikany and Christiana Little complete the Kaplan family, Houston Vinson and Hiro (as the dog, Queenie) complete the Jones family, John David Jasper is Sankey, David Hughey is a slick Harry Easter, the married coworker who puts the make on Rose and offers, "Wouldn't You Like to Be on Broadway," Margaret Peterson is Mrs. Hildebrand, evicted from the building on the day her daughter graduates, and Jonathan Keeley is Police Officer Murphy.

Remaining performances of "Street Scene" at MSM, at 122nd Street and Broadway, are on May 2 at 7:30 pm and 4 at 2:30 pm. For tickets, at $20, or $10 for seniors and students, visit www.msmnyc.edu or call the MSM Concert Office at 917/493-4428.