The big concert numbers - I think first of the hair-raising choral writing that begins and ends the ``Hurricane Scene'' - stick in the mind's ear long after the final curtain. The accompanied recitatives - dropped in most revivals until Houston's - bristle with vitality. The big tunes hardly need introduction, but one is constantly amazed at their variety and communicative range, the superb way they build and arch, and how effortlessly they follow one another from overture to finale. The choral writing is as skillful and lavish as anything in Verdi and Wagner. As with all but the most perfect of operas, some of the music in ``Porgy'' is expendable, but when one thinks that this was Gershwin's only crack at an art form that took most composers 10 or 15 tries to really master, the results are extraordinary.īut then again, ``Porgy'' is an extraordinary opera.
The opera is presented without cuts - a solid three hours of music, plus two intermissions. The chorus, hired specifically for this opera, numbers 70 adults, plus children and dancers (the Workshop Ensemble of the Dance Theatre of Harlem). Thirteen singers are at the Met for the first time (as are actors Larry Storch and Gary Drane). Simon Estes and Grace Bumbry sing the title roles many of the supporting parts are given to Met regulars like Myra Merritt, Barbara Conrad, Isola Jones, and Florence Quivar.
But for many, ``Porgy'' was not going to arrive operatically until the Met had put it on its boards.Īnd the Met has done honorably by ``Porgy and Bess.'' It has been lavishly cast, and in accord with the Gershwin estate stricture that the cast be all black except for the few talking roles written for whites. Granted, the Houston Grand Opera production in '76 showed the musical world that the work belonged in an opera house. On that evening, the Gershwin masterwork was finally given its first Met performance - nearly 50 years after the work first premi`ered in Boston. If any doubts remained as to whether or not George Gershwin's ``Porgy and Bess'' was an opera, the Metropolitan Opera dispelled them Feb.
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