OPERA
Catfi sh Row Sparks Spiff ed Up “Porgy”
From society’s margins, voices combine thrillingly in song
BY ELI JACOBSON
Gershwin’s folk opera “Porgy and Bess”
is a hybrid work considered diffi cult
to classify at its 1935 premiere; its
form and content changed during its
genesis. It has been subjected to tinkering ever
since on operatic and Broadway stages and on
fi lm. It is a portrait of the lives of the black community
in Charleston, South Carolina, as seen
through the gaze of white men: original author
and librettist DuBose Heyward (and his wife
Dorothy), stage director Rouben Mamoulian,
and composer and librettist George and Ira
Gershwin. Initially considered a powerful statement
of the dignity and resilience of African-
Americans, it was denounced as racist by the
NAACP in the 1950s. My late friend Barbara, a
black woman, called it a “minstrel show.”
“Porgy and Bess” is many things to many
people and it changes or is changed according
to what people want from it: a Broadway musical
with a score cut down as it became in the
1940s and 2012 Broadway revivals? Or a grand
opera as it became in the 1976 Houston Grand
Opera production that toured and the long
delayed 1985 Metropolitan Opera premiere?
Both those operatic productions restored music
that Gershwin and Mamoulian cut before the
Broadway opening. Jazz artists have brilliantly
reinterpreted Gershwin’s songs in their idiom.
The Metropolitan Opera’s new production
that opened the season evidently is giving the
contemporary audience what they want — the
run (through February 1) is nearly sold out and
the critical reception has been largely positive.
The Met is using an expanded opera house version
of the score with some judicious cuts — the
evening still runs more than three hours. I enjoyed
the stripped down and dramatically cogent
2012 Broadway production starring Audra
MacDonald — the main plot of “Porgy and Bess”
is fairly simple with a lot of background incident.
Cutting a lot of the extra music — involving
the chorus as the denizens of Catfi sh Row
— put a stronger focus on the lead characters,
creating stronger dramatic propulsion. In the
Metropolitan Opera’s new production, it is the
choral ensemble embodying the Catfi sh Row
community that emerges as the breakout star.
Met chorus director Donald Palumbo has
recruited a special “Porgy” chorus of African-
American singers who act and sing thrillingly
as an ensemble under production director
James Robinson’s guidance. Solo lines reveal
that there are world-class voices emerging from
the choir that rival (and in a few cases surpass)
the main performers. The chorus is also comfortable
with the fusion of jazz and gospel styles
Angel Blue and Frederick Ballentine in the Metropolitan Opera production of “Porgy and Bess.”
with the classical in Gershwin’s score that
eludes most of the lead performers. The ensemble
creates a true Catfi sh Row community that
will survive despite the tragedy and hardship
that threaten their marginal existence.
The Met’s lead cast make a strong team with
a hole in the center: Eric Owens’ Porgy emerges
as a recessive cipher. Owens’ dull, worn bassbaritone
strains to reach high notes. His acting
is often inert — he spends a lot of time sitting
down, doesn’t muster enough rage to convincingly
kill Crown in Act II, and fails to register
any great emotional intensity until his fi nal
scene culminating with “Oh Lawd, I’m on my
Way.”
Owens’ Porgy seems to be a generation or two
older than his Bess — the radiant and blooming
young soprano star Angel Blue — and his
chemistry with his love interest is more paternal
than sexual or romantic. Blue’s problem is
due to her strengths as a performer. Though
she brings a fresh, voluptuous voice and presence
onstage, she doesn’t look as damaged
or used as the drug addict Bess should even
though she unsparingly portrays Bess’ compulsive
addiction to “happy dust,” going so far
as to snort it off the fl oor. Blue’s rich soprano
combines the necessary spinto thrust with lyric
radiance. She has natural charisma that compels
you to watch her every move. Blue has the
potential to give us an even better Bess — time
and experience will reveal it. Both leads could
have benefi ted from better personal direction
KEN HOWARD/ METROPOLITAN OPERA
and staging in their intimate scenes than what
director Robinson has given them.
Robinson’s staging is more effective in the
wide frame than close-up intimacy. His main
focus is the ensemble who often upstage the
leads — literally they are placed front and center
putting Porgy and Bess on the sidelines.
Camille A. Brown’s delightful choreography
uses vernacular dance movements that look
spontaneous and unrehearsed. But Brown also
puts her dancers downstage center where their
whooping and stomping sometimes overwhelm
the music. Michael Yeargan’s mobile Catfi sh
Row sets are an airy multilevel wooden framework
of buildings that be reconfi gured in different
angles. The interludes feature a drop curtain
depicting an ocean shore with docks and
recorded seagull cries. Like Catherine Zuber’s
rather clean and new-looking costumes, it all
looks like a minimalist stylization of a ghetto
rather than the squalid real thing.
Ryan Speedo Green as Jake has the best
male voice in the cast and a heroic leading
man presence — you miss him when he leaves
the stage. As Clara, who opens the opera with
“Summertime,” Golda Schultz unfurls a shimmering
crystalline soprano that ravishes the
ear. Soprano Latonia Moore lacks the dark
low tones that mezzo-soprano Serenas have
brought to “My Man’s Gone Now” but she is radiant
in her prayer to “Doctor Jesus” in Act II.
➤ PORGY AND BESS, continued on p.31
October 24 - November 6 30 , 2019 | GayCityNews.com
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