COLOSSAL DRAMA IN 'PORGY AND BESS,' ONE TO REMEMBER 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of June 15-22, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 113
          Any one who still believes opera to be a stodgy ritual has to see and hear “Porgy and Bess” (1935) at the S.F. Opera, where the company has really got it together---lustrous singing, some ferocious theater, and a vivid verismo portrayal of  blacks struggling to exist in the old rural South.
            I have seen “Porgys” from here to Russia (where it was in Russian, with an all-white cast!), and way back to the U.S. national touring production of 1952-53 that introduced Leontyne Price to the world. But the current reprise of the tragedy at the Opera House is a knock-out over all the others: touching, tender, violent, funny---and sad enough to move you to tears. Young Laquita Mitchell is the finest Bess I ever hope to encounter. 
            This production is Director Francesca Zambello’s baby, one launched via Washington National Opera and brought here. It calls for some three dozen solo voices, and an all-black cast of singers, including a large chorus---not the sort of ensemble readily tossed together backstage. But it all jelled when I caught it June 14 in a highly consistent acting/singing experience.
            It’s the unlikeliest of love stories: the cripple Porgy and the alluring young Bess, trying to make it despite every adversity. There’s public ridicule, Bess’ tawdry background, her drug habit (an audacious theme for 1935), oppressive white police, murder, a hurricane, prejudice, drunkenness, and the oppressive rapist-bully Crown.  Inevitably, the couple fails. But not before one of the most touching love duets created by any American opera composer, “Bess You Is My Woman Now.”
            This “American folk opera” was a highly unlikely hit when unveiled in 1935, penned by the Broadway songsmith with no operatic experience, George Gershwin, and his librettist brother Ira. But George caught on to the medium instinctively, sprinkling it with hit numbers like “Summertime” and ”I’ve Got Plenty of Nuttin’” (with an environmental banjo accompaniment). The two spent a summer on the coast of South Carolina, meeting, eating and conversing with the rural blacks, by the end of which these brothers---white New York Jews---were able deftly to capture the rhythms and flavor of that society.  
            At the center of the drama lies the noble outcast Porgy, played here in a broad “Otello”-like bass-baritone by Eric Owens. His antagonist is the attractively sinister murderer Crown, played resonantly by Lester Lynch. And the scene-stealing dancer-singer Sportin’ Life is interpreted in grand vitality by Chauncey Packer.
            But then it’s Bess, Bess, Bess---Laquita Mitchell in that Americanized Violetta/Mimi/Butterfly role. She offers a fetching lyric soprano, a figure that puts the rest of us to shame, flame-red hair, and rhythmic movement. She wins our sympathies as much as Porgy does. And toward the end there is a brief, crazy moresco dance moment, almost a seizure, when she reverts to drugs and falls twisting into the arms of the dope peddler Sportin' Life, one of the most extraordinary little drop-jaw scenelets ever encountered here.
            The opera ends with a question mark, something like “Manon” or "Lulu" without the final scene. Porgy heads off in quest of Bess, in far-off New York. Is finding her hopeless? Or will the drugs have ruined her beyond rehabilitation? An epilogue would have provided closure to one of the most touching opera-dramas of the 20th century. 
            The veteran John DeMain conducted once again, with accustomed aplomb. And the chorus under Director Ian Robertson was nothing short of sensational. 
            Generous cuts brought the four-hour opera down to three, greatly tightening the element of theater. Instead of rolling on the traditional goat-cart, this Porgy walked limping on a crutch, a less effective solution. And Catfish Row became an enclosed, single-set courtyard of tiny residences, capped by a bridge effectively displaying the huge cast, as created by Set Designer Peter J. Davison.
            The voices are strong, evocative and natural. Only the minor speaking roles are amplified.
            The good news: “Porgy and Bess” are back with us, locked in our hearts.  
            “Porgy and Bess,” a opera-tragedy about black America by George and Ira Gershwin, in English. Three hours, one intermission. Through June 27 at the Opera House, presented by the S.F. Opera. For info: (415) 864-3330, or else go online.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2009
                                       #
           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
                      #
                 Return to main menu.