When the Metropolitan Opera in New York opened their 2019-2020 season, it was with the first new production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in nearly three decades. Reviews were overwhelmingly positive for this production, directed by James Robinson. Porgy and Bess will continue through February 1st at the famed opera house.
If you saw the Broadway version which went by the name The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, that was a truncated version and it was also modified to fit more contemporary times. The Metropolitan Opera production is the full opera as originally written by George Gershwin, Dubose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin.
Porgy and Bess tells the story of a crippled beggar, Porgy (Eric Owens), who is in love with Bess (Angel Blue). The opera is set in Catfish Row, which is a tenement area of Charleston, South Carolina. The time is the 1920s. There’s a drug dealer, Sportin’ Life (Frederick Ballentine), a murder and the seductive powers of the dream of a better life. That dream comes crashing in on several characters.
Gershwin’s score features such beloved songs as Summertime, I Loves You Porgy and It Ain’t Necessarily So.
Golda Schultz sings the role of Clara. Latonia Moore is Serena, Denyce Graves is Maria, Alfred Walker is Crown and Donovan Singletary is Jake. Conducting the production is David Robertson.
If you can’t make it to New York, there will be a Live in HD screening around the world of the last performance on February 1st.
Photo: Angel Blue as Bess and Eric Owens as Porgy in the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. (Photo by Ken Howard) Courtesy of Met Opera