Porgy and Bess: by George Gershwin

First up for the 2011-2012 season was Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Once again I was watching a "modern" opera with English lyrics. Unfortunately two big immediate strikes against it. But even without those two big biases I still didn't enjoy this opera.

I suppose I should start with the things that I liked though to be fair. I liked that we were watching the primary artists. There was no secondary cast so that was really nice. I enjoyed several of the artists individual performances Gwendolyn Brown (Maria) was magnificent and I always enjoy Gordon Hawkins (Porgy) even though this was not my favorite role for him.

My complaint with this opera was two fold. One, it sounded like a musical. When the overture began it had the flavor of a musical to it, so when the artists began to sing in operatic form it was odd and disconcerting to say the least. I kept wishing that either the music was different or the style of singing was different. Not something to fault any of the artists on. They did fabulous with what they had. It was a underlying problem with the opera itself rather than any individual performance. Two, the opera uses dialect which is important to the story line but completely bizarre to listen to. Imagine a person saying the line "I's loves you Porgy. I's yo' woman." But instead of hearing the entire sentence as words the last word of each sentence is a trilled opera note. Alarming and unusual right?

Finally, I just didn't really love the story line. Honestly. Many parts were interesting and I enjoyed the role of Sportin' Life. But overall it was just not my favorite.

Must See Rating: **