PORGY AND BESS - ARTS PICTUREHOUSE

Summertime came to the Arts Picturehouse today even though outside it was as chilly as a foggy day in London town. My clumsy references to Gershwin songs do little justice to the astonishing masterpiece that has blown your reviewer away; from Catfish Row back to Cherry Hinton. The ‘live at the New York Met’ production of ‘Porgy and Bess’ was gripping, all consuming and utterly overwhelming in its intensity. Wonderfully sung and acted, the whole cast brimmed with high voltage energy and commitment.

The experience of watching ‘live’ opera from the comfort of a cinema seat brings with it astonishing close ups, exciting tracking shots though without the visual director ever getting in the way of the operatic rhythms. Though I found the sound system to be on the tinny side of high fidelity, it did little to distract from three hours of pure mesmeric pleasure. George Gershwin’s score; bluesy, jazz-enriched but when necessary going the full Puccini, is ravishing. Shifting constantly in mood – from the folksy (‘I got plenty of nuttin’) to the grand operatic (‘Bess, you is my woman now’) the score just captivates without any dull moments. There is even a huge and powerful storm scene which surely presages the sea tempest prelude in ‘Peter Grimes’ (written 10 years after P & B).

Angel Blue was as perfect a Bess as you can imagine – brittle, troubled and prone; Eric Owens fully inhabited the poor, disabled Porgy. Frederick Ballentine was suitably serpentine as the drug dealer ‘Sporting Life’ dominating the stage whenever he was there to wield his malevolent magic.

Words by Ira Gershwin and Dubose Heyward carry the action along effortlessly. Heyward’s ‘Summertime’ is lyrical poetry in motion. Ira’s signature cheeky rhyming shines in ‘Ain’t necessarily so’.. Above all is George Gershwin’s incredible score – pure New York, pure South Carolina and pure delight. For this all-American opera, every day is summertime and the loving is easy.