Porgy and Bess HD Rerun

Conductor...............David Robertson

Porgy...................Eric Owens
Bess....................Angel Blue

I saw Wednesday's rerun of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess from the Metropolitan opera at my local theater.  I didn't enjoy it as much as the last time.  I think the sound in my theater was not adequate to the task of reproducing the voices. 

Porgy and Bess in HD

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Conductor...............David Robertson
Production..............James Robinson
Choreographer.........Camille A. Brown

Porgy...................Eric Owens
Bess....................Angel Blue
Sporting Life.......Frederick Ballentine
Crown.................Alfred Walker
Clara...................Golda Schultz
Jake....................Donovan Singletary
Serena.................Latonia Moore
Maria..................Denyce Graves

Host...................Audra McDonald

Saturday we were treated to a live in HD transmission of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.  This was a wonderful experience.  It was announced that Eric Owens had a cold, but we loved him anyway. They have spared no expense in assembling the above cast.

It was a new production shared with the ENO and some other companies.  Rooms are outlined in transparent beams, allowing for private spaces when needed and open spaces for the larger crowd scenes.  Porgy wears a brace like he had polio, a reasonable explanation for his crippling.  The only aspect of the production anyone seemed to mind was the choice to portray Clara and Jake's child as a babe in arms, a tiny, always sleeping babe in arms.  The current trend in opera is to eliminate any children without dialog and replace them with puppets, robots, or maybe inert blobs of cloth.  This reduces rehearsal time.  The baby doesn't grow with the passage of time.  It wasn't terrible, but it was a distraction.

All the supporting groups were in top form.  The great Met orchestra played Gershwin in perfect style.  One comment about the chorus said, "They're doing the Verdi Requiem."  Big singing.  We go to the opera to hear big singing, and we got it here.  The ballet was choreographed to suggest what might have been happening in this place and time.

The singing was incredible, including Eric.  But the thing that set this Porgy apart from all others was the drama.  The individual characters came to life.  The director and the actors themselves get the credit for this.  Opera is so dense and complicated, and this certainly includes Porgy and Bess, that the development of complete personalities is often left by the wayside.  We loved them all.

The extremely high quality was maintained in the interviews by Audra McDonald.  She was a friend to all.

Thank you for bringing us such a magnificent Porgy and Bess. 

Porgy and Bess on Broadway

Bess - Audra McDonald
Porgy - Norm Lewis
Sportin Life - David Alan Grier

I am watching a “non-television” film of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess from the 2012 Broadway production.  Until I saw this, I did not realize that there are actually 2 so very different versions of this work.  Until now I have only been aware of the opera version where all the text is sung and accompanied by a standard opera orchestra, the original version from 1935.

The Broadway version is substantially shorter and includes spoken dialog written for this production.  The sound of the recording isn't good enough to understand most of this.  As an opera fan and musician, I very much miss the sound I am used to.  I'm getting more of a swing band sound here with a lot of brass, or perhaps it should be described as a pit band.  If there are violins, I'm not hearing them.  The singing is pretty good, but the backup kind of leaves them hanging.  I haven't kept in touch with the Broadway sound in the 21st century. Audra is classically trained, but I don't believe the others are.  This is just my opinion.

The aim here isn't opera but is instead to produce a realistic, life-like view of southern black culture.  It is felt that presentations by large opera companies don't achieve this.  There is a lot of realistic acting, occasionally approaching actual abuse.  I've seen Audra in a full length work before, live for Mahagonny, and she is astounding here.  She quit the run early because of illness.  I can see now that she spends a lot of time shouting, not a good idea for a singer.  I remember well going to sports events as a teenager and its effect on the voice.

Though Porgy and Bess has always been controversial, my own perspective doesn't really have anything to add to this argument.  Many count the entire story to be racist. Edwin DuBose Heyward who wrote both the libretto and the novel it is based on was southern white and of the planter class.  Read Audra McDonald's take on racism in Porgy and Bess here.

This is mind altering, not at all the Porgy and Bess of memory, but still one knows that it does not exist without Gershwin.  This particular version doesn't exist without Audra McDonald.  The general impression is one of intense raw power.  It's rather frightening.

I think it is regrettable that there is no commercial film of this.  I feel glad I saw it at all, but a commercial film would result in clearer sound, making the dialog easier to understand and the music more beautiful.  It did not woo me away from my operatic version.  I could almost count this as a new opera.

Porgy and Bess from San Francisco

The San Francisco Opera has released on DVD and Blue Ray their 2009 Porgy and Bess that I praised so highly here. This is the Eric Owens Porgy and Laquita Mitchell Bess. It was the experience of a lifetime.
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Measha sings Bess

Measha Brueggergosman is on the cover of Opera News this month because she is singing Bess at the Cincinnati Opera from June 28 to July 8. 

One picture is not enough.  As you can see, Measha has transformed into a babe.

Measha is a Canadian and doesn't necessarily care about attitudes in the USA.  She obviously loves her natural hair, and when asked about racism in Porgy and Bess replies, "Well, who cares?"  She understands why someone would ask the question, but, "Obviously from my perspective, I don't care.  I think that the music is so strong and the story--whether [the creators] were black or not-- is absolutely essential....  I'm not going to apply a standard to Porgy and Bess that I don't apply to other repertoire.  That just cheapens the work."  Thank you, Measha.  However one regards the characters, it's still the greatest of all American operas. 

She's been having some health problems.  We wish her well.  When I first came across her at a recital in Berkeley she wasn't doing opera.  I'm glad she's changed her mind.

Porgy and Bess on Broadway

Listen to this interview with Audra McDonald.  Click where it says Listen.  She likes the same versions I do.  Don't you love it when that happens!  Unfortunately, I can hear the strain she talks about in her voice when she talks.  There is singing.  Wonderful singing.  She makes Bess the center of the drama, which I haven't seen before.

Is Porgy and Bess Racist

Porgy and Bess is on my mind right now--I'm not really sure why.  One of the questions that constantly arises is whether or not P&B is racist.  My research has led me to this interview last October with Audra McDonald in the LA Times.

Question: Obviously one of the critiques of “Porgy and Bess” is that, even at the time it was written, but certainly in 2011, the view of black American life is racist. Do you share that view?

McDonald: When I first was exposed to “Porgy and Bess” many, many years ago, I was blown away by it — loved the music, overwhelmed by the production at the Met that I saw and thought I want to play Bess someday. But I also knew they were stereotypes that were considered racist. And lots of people, lots of African Americans and African American performers who play these roles have trouble with the stereotypical way in which these characters have been drawn. They’re called archetypes, but a lot of people call them stereotypes as well.

And in a lot of the research that I’ve done on this piece, learning about the history of it, the many different versions of it that exist and will continue to exist and will continue to morph as this piece goes on into the 21st century, I know George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward were writing this piece from a place of love and from their understanding of African American culture. But they were still outsiders in that culture, and therefore they can’t possibly have perfectly drawn fine lines for their characters, because it’s an outside culture, especially at a time when there was no race mixing to speak of. And also it was a time when it was the law in many parts of the land that, yes, black people don’t come to the theater the same day as white people come to the theater in the Jim Crow South.

Question: I read that a cast in Washington, D.C., protested that.

McDonald: Yes. The original Porgy refused to play the theater in Washington, D.C., until they [admitted a mixed-race audience], and it went back and forth and back and forth, but finally they desegregated that theater for the first time.

Question: What do we see in Bess in this production that we didn’t see before?

McDonald: I have no idea because I haven’t seen every production that’s ever been. All I can see is what our goal is, to really focus on these two people and the effect they have on each other’s life, the effect they have on the choices they make, the fact that Porgy becomes more of a man, not just in a sexual way but really tries to overcome his handicap; it’s a means to become more of a man because he’s got something to live for now that makes him feel that he can walk like a natural man and be there for her — “I’m going to take care of this. I will take care of Crown. Crown is my business.”

As far as Bess is concerned, she’s really struggling with her addictions, struggling to overcome them, really has that vision of herself in Porgy’s eyes. For her it’s staying away from her addictions long enough so she can walk toward that vision of this whole worthy woman, worthy of being loved. And there’s a beautiful passage in the book by Dubose Heywood — since the book actually gave us a lot more information — there are other men out there, but Bess says, “But God only made one Porgy, and I can only be decent with you because there’s no one like you” — I’m paraphrasing. Bess realizes that it’s Porgy that keeps her strong. It’s her reflection in his eyes that gives her a vision of what her potential is. They both do that for each other. The tragedy is that Porgy is taken away from her. She can’t hold on to him.

Porgy and Bess

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Porgy, a crippled beggar: Eric Owens*
Bess: Laquita Mitchell*
Crown, a stevedore: Lester Lynch
Serena, Robbins's wife: Karen Slack
Clara, Jake's wife: Angel Blue
Maria, keeper of the cookshop: Alteouise deVaughn
Jake, a fisherman: Eric Greene
Sportin' Life, a dope peddler: Chauncey Packer

Conductor: John DeMain
Production: Francesca Zambello

I don't know if my writing is up to this, but here goes. Occasionally the planets align, the universe conspires to bring us greatness. Porgy and Bess at the San Francisco Opera was one of those times. I will attempt to tell why.

The time was moved to the 1950s, the time in our lives when the lives of our black neighbors first came to our attention. The time when they became fully realized human beings in our minds. The police look like policemen from photographs of the civil rights movement. We know what this world is like. When Porgy sings that he is going to New York to find Bess, we know the possibilities and the obstacles.

Modern productions have abandoned the cart Porgy used to ride around on in favor of crutches and less obvious crippling. We are happier to watch Porgy gain in strength through the opera and become someone who might kill his rival, someone who might indeed find Bess in New York.

I see the theatrical power of Porgy and Bess as I have never seen it before. It is a great opera in part because it is about love. In this production it was a love we could really believe in.

Only Eric Owens as Porgy and Karen Slack as Serena had ever appeared at the San Francisco Opera before. Eric Owens was here last summer in Ariodante. Karen Slack is someone whose career I follow, and she was excellent as Serena.

The whole cast was full of big voices and big acting. I liked the red wig of Laquita Mitchell as Bess--it made her easy to find on the crowded stage. She had great presence in the role. Other names: Lester Lynch as Crown, Angel Blue as Clara, Chauncey Packer as Sportin Life.

I liked them all. David Gockley insists on verisimilitude and provided us with an all black cast. Except the white characters, of course.

I haven't explained yet why it was the great Porgy and Bess of my lifetime. I noticed that the audience yelled loudly for everyone else but left unnoticed John DeMain when he came out to take his conductor's bow. I was the only one yelling. Bravo. What made this my best Porgy ever was the music. It rocked. Everyone sang big and rocked out. The chorus was the undisputed star. They were fabulous. Such consistently great music making throughout such a long, complicated piece with such a large cast must be credited to the conductor. That's his job. DeMain hangs out in Houston, which makes him a friend of Gockley.

About halfway through I realized: This is something truly wonderful.
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Porgy and Bess

My local library has a copy of the 1993 film of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, based on the Glyndebourne production, the same cast as the CD recommended by Anthony Tommasini. Why buy a CD when you can see this marvelous film?

The casting is outstanding. Only two of the voices are dubbed: Harolyn Blackwell as Clara and Bruce Hubbard as Jake, characters who sing the important arias "Summertime," that most beautiful of lullabies sung very sweetly here, and "A woman is a sometime thing," also sung to Clara's baby boy. The other parts are played by the singers, and all appear exactly as you would wish. Damon Evans is a wonderfully slimy Sportin Life. Cynthia Clarey as Serena sings the marvelously operatic "My man gone now." Crown played by Gregg Baker is appropriately sexually powerful and irresistable. Cyntha Haymon's Bess is beautiful enough to be fought over and sings very lyrically.

But this is Willard White's Porgy and Bess. Why call it anything else? His Porgy is monumental. He stands with the use of canes, making him powerful and anything but pathetic. Willard White is one of the great contemporary operatic baritones, with a beautiful voice and deep musical understanding. His performance changed my feeling about the opera completely. I liked a strong Porgy.

The details of this production are awesome: the woman smoking a corn cob pipe, everyone dressing up for the church picnic, e.g. The sense of faithful realism that pervades this film is rare in any medium, unheard of in opera.

Porgy and Bess is the iconic American opera, entirely unlike anything before or since, with the most American of stories and the most American music. In the triumvirate of theater--singing--music it is outstanding in all three. How did a pop composer like Gershwin write so well for operatic voices? P&B is a true opera.

Perhaps it took the English theater to make this opera really work. I've never seen it so well done as here. It is simply beautiful.
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