Metropolitan Opera – Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. February 12, 2020.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat C107, $104.50).

Story.  As stated in the Playbill, the setting for the story is the slightly fictionalized versions of real places in and around Charleston, South Carolina.  The protagonist Porgy is a disabled beggar.  Bess, the other, is with Crown, an alcoholic and a drug user.  Crown gets into a fight with Robbins, kills him, and flees.  Sportin’ Life offers to take Bess to New York, but she refuses.  Porgy offers Bess shelter and protection, she accepts. About a month later, the group go on a church picnic on Kittiwah Island, Porgy stays in Catfish Row. Crown is hiding out on the island and confronts Bess, who willingly stays behind for a couple of days.  When Bess returns to Porgy, she is ill.  When Crown returns and tries to take Bess, Porgy kills him.  While the police take custody of Porgy, Sportin’ Life gets Bess to take drugs again, and the two head to New York.  A week later, Porgy is released from jail and returns.  Upon learning that Bess has gone to New York, he starts his trip up north to find her.

Conductor – David Robertson.  Clara – Janai Brugger, Sportin’ Life – Chauncey Packer, Porgy – Eric Owens, Crown – Alfred Walker, Bess – Angel Blue.

I was very happy when I got tickets for this performance.  We had originally bought them for a different date, but couldn’t make them because of travel plans.  Just as I was resigned that we wouldn’t be able to see this opera, the Met announced they would put on additional performances, which I managed to get tickets for.  Given how popular the opera appeared to be, and that I could get tickets to this performance, I was certainly looking forward to it.

Bottom line, however, was that it didn’t meet my (admittedly) high expectations.  I will get to the specifics as I write this blog entry.

First, the story is unnecessarily complicated.  I don’t know what the original story is like, but I get the impression that the lyricists were not willing to edit out a lot of the peripheries.  Even the compelling story of Clara and Jake, who both drowned in the thunderstorm.  One could argue there are artistic differences, but I would much rather see how the protagonists’ characters are developed so I can understand them better.  Given where I sat, I had trouble telling them apart anyway; that had to be the case for most of the audience.

There is a lot of talk about culture appropriation, and if I am not mistaken, the Met recruited many African-Americans for the roles.  The only whites in the cast were the police and the coroner, and not portrayed in a friendly way; they also had only spoken lines.  I have no problem with that.  My only question is why was the line drawn there; not a dig on Robertson, weren’t there African-American conductors that could lead the performance?  And surely we don’t expect operas such as La Boheme to have an all-European (I may even say all-White) cast, or Turandot to have an all-Chinese cast.  Sometime it is difficult to tell the difference between principle and pandering.

There was a lot of applause when the curtain first rose to show the set.  I don’t quite know how to describe the structure, other than it was to represent different living quarters, with Porgy’s on stage left.  A simplified set was used for one of the scenes, and a stage rotation showed a boat by the sea.  There was this beach scene (where the picnic was held) that was used for about 10 minutes at the end of the first half.  Interestingly there was no attempt to show the ocean other than projections on the screen in between scenes.

As to the music, I must admit other than the few famous tunes, I knew very little about the opera.  Given how singable those tunes are, I was surprised at how a lot of the music sounded, even taking into account my overall exposure to his music (American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue come readily to mind).

As to the singing, there were a few bright spots, but I was generally disappointed.  It didn’t help that one of the first tunes was Summer Time.  I am sure for most people the version they are familiar with is the one by Ella Fitzgerald.  I was surprised at how high the pitch was.  And that Brugger was no Fitzgerald.  Still an enjoyable rendition.  That song is the best-known one from the opera, and to a certain extent also was the best part of the performance.  (To be fair, Blue also sang it towards the end, and was quite good.)

In general the women singers did quite well.  While there voices didn’t carry well into the balcony, I could at least hear them, sometimes over a very large orchestra.

Owens has seen a lot of “action” lately.  I remember him as Alberich in the Ring, where he did poorly in my judgment; Anne remembers him from Messiah, where he did well.  Today he was a disappointment.  I could barely hear his voice, and what I could hear wasn’t particularly compelling.  A good example was the tune “I got plenty o nuttin’,” which can be funny as the voice of Porgy blends seamlessly with the banjo.  Not tonight, they singer and the instrumentalist kept stepping on each other.  I heard at intermission criticisms of his acting skills, indeed he didn’t make Porgy into as sympathetic a character as he could be.

This set is used during most of the performance; it sits on a rotating platform.  To the right of Robertson are Crown and Porgy, to his left Bess and Sportin' Life.  Palumbo is in the second row.  There is another chorus master.

The premiere of the opera (which Gershwin subsequently called a Folk Opera) was in a Broadway Theater.  To me two characteristics stand out: size of the orchestra, and use of microphones.  In terms of the singing, I can’t go beyond the observation that the techniques are very different.  (Some Broadway singer tried to explain that to me many years ago, as a non-singer I didn’t understand.)  Today’s orchestra was huge, and Robertson seemed to be able to keep them under control.  He just finished his Sydney Symphony tenure, I wonder what he is up to next.

I often wonder if much of the bruhaha behind some of these “must see” shows are audience members trying to out-sophisticate one another, or that I am the wannabe who doesn’t understand anything more sophisticated than [take your pick.]  Some while back I decided I should trust my sense of pitch; perhaps it is time to say I can trust my judgment on good art.

We drove up, and found plentiful parking on the streets.  NYC is slow during the winter months.