By Robert W. Bethune, guest critic
REVIEW:
'Porgy and Bess'
Michigan Opera Theatre at the Detroit Opera House, 1526 Broadway, Detroit. Oct. 25, 27-29 & Nov. 2-5. Tickets: $28-$120. For information: 313-237-7464 or http://www.michiganopera.org
First of all, credit goes to Steven Mercurio for conducting "Porgy and Bess" based on solid understanding of what this music is and is not. He asks us to perk up our ears and listen as if we had not heard it before, which is important, as I shall explain.
If you come to "Porgy and Bess" fresh from "Rhapsody in Blue" or "An American in Paris," you ask: Where's the flip and flash, the sparkling melodies and crisp rhythms? Well, Gershwin is doing something where substance really matters, where he needs to control that snazzy virtuosity and make it serve a dramatic purpose. He succeeds, and what his purpose is becomes clear when you realize that the flashy, jazzy styling in this opera is focused on the superficially flashy, jazzy character of Sportin' Life – snap and crackle over a life built on ruining other people's lives. The characters of stronger nature and better purpose are portrayed by music that is unmistakably rooted in the sound of spirituals. Even as life drags them down, the core of humanity in them survives and is brought out by that constant musical undercurrent.
If you come to this production of "Porgy and Bess" fresh from nightclub and jazz club renditions of the many famous songs, you're going to be bewildered until you realize that those club versions are excerpts taken out of context and turned into something they never were born to be. In the opera, functioning in context and in character, they do not work or sound like jazz standards; they work and sound as part of a dramatic fabric, and therefore they work and sound as they should, which may not be the way you think they will.
I wish I didn't have to say it, but I do: I needed the super-titles even though this opera is sung in English. The singing of words got lost in the singing of sounds. Kudos to Jubilant Sykes as Sportin' Life on that front; I understood everything he sang.
I have no such quarrel with emotional clarity. Sykes exposes the cold, empty heart of Sportin' Life with style.
Lisa Daltirus showed us both the weakness and the love in Bess, a character that Gershwin does not really pull off with complete success.
You can't help but bleed for the sheer emotional need in Gordon Hawkin's Porgy. As for the snarling, vicious animality of Timothy Blevin's Crown, well, I'll be honest: I liked watching him die.
The Gershwins' version of 1920's black Charleston dialect is probably inaccurate and definitely dated. Some other aspects of the production are more stereotypic than real. None of that matters because the opera succeeds in showing us authentic human spirit under great pressure. It tells us what it's like to love and lose, a human experience that transcends details of time and place.
