Porgy & Bess (ENO 2018)

sorry, I haven't seen it yet but I have just seen & heard Summertime being sung at the eno website. Sounds great! I understand that the show will be broadcast on Radio 3 in the new year. I'm really looking forward to it.

I saw this yesterday evening, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have always wanted to see a production on stage, and this ENO staging was my first. The production was handsome to look at, the orchestra played sublimely under John Wilson and the chorus singing in particular was a real highlight. When everyone was singing at full throttle, it was absolutely thrilling!

The piece is undoubtedly a masterpiece, with real standout tunes. Dramaturgically however, it is hit and miss for me. I love the parallels the piece ultimately draws between Porgy and Crown, both being driven to kill at various points in the piece for the love of Bess. However, Bess is somewhat of a thinly drawn character. Yes, she feels alone in the world, and therefore she wants a man to support and provide for her, but even after she has found comfort with Porgy, she still makes terrible mistakes, despite Crown and Sporting Life treating her so badly. She shows an amazing lack of will-power, and this left me to question her motivation which is never really discussed. I do not find this with the other characters, although Crown is really an archetypal villian. Porgy’s love for Bess is so strong because no other woman has shown him love the way that Bess has, and he feels the need to prove himself due to his disability. The theme of manhood, and what is a man seemed particularly pressient.

This was very enjoyable yesterday - my only reservations are really about the work itself - I couldn't imagine it better performed; it was the best I've seen so far, which is four different productions.

The opera is a near masterpiece - nobody could have a greater admiration of Gershwin's genius than myself, and the individual songs are peerless - it's just the bits in between. Gershwin goes for a kind of 'jazz arioso' tinged with bits of Wagner which is often attractive musically but doesn't push the drama forward. In that regard he is found wanting when you compare him with Mozart, Verdi or Puccini. Compared with the latter he is not good at setting up the big numbers with the music that has gone before. The way that Puccini sets up an aria like 'Vissi d'arte' or Musetta's Waltz Song is masterly and the aria is twice as effective because of this artful musical preparation. The majority of Gershwin's fabulous songs don't 'land' like they should because the music prior to it is not doing its job properly. The one exception to this is 'Bess you is my Woman Now' which is brilliantly prepared by the lower strings. This was also superbly sung yesterday.

As others have said the other problem is the plot - it needs major pruning and Bess's character just doesn't come into sufficient focus. What does work is the character of Porgy and Eric Greene was sensational yesterday. He has a lovely voice and his final scenes were absolutely heart-rending. All leading singers were excellent - Nmon Ford as Crown was very charismatic. Three stand-out musical moments were (as mentioned) "Bess you is...", Nadine Benjamin's singing of 'Summertime' which was probably the best I've ever heard - particularly exquisite was the way she leant into the song with a delicious rubato on the first two notes and her spot on intonation (not always a given in this song), and the absolutely electrifying performance of 'There's a boat dats leaving' ' where John Wilson got the ENO orchestra to play with as much pizzazz as his eponymous band. In fact it was superbly conducted throughout - even better than Rattle in his famous Glyndebourne production. On the strength of this I hope he gets the chance to conduct other operas.

Oh and the production and design was wonderful too!

I was also there yesterday! I adored the music going in but have never found a production as emotional and moving as this one, even from up in the gods!

Agree with all of above . Saw the last(?) london production with Clarke Peters and was put off the piece! So enjoyed this.

Re John Wilson, After seeing him conduct Glyndebourne Touring Opera At Milton Keynes in Nov 2016 I wrote this.

"The conducting was very interesting even though I don’t' know exactly what to make of it. This was John Wilson's Glyndebourne debut. He's made quite a name for himself as a restorer and performer of Classic Hollywood scores and so he's no stranger to the human voice. He gave a really fresh and detailed production of the score. This was no wash of grand Puccini themes but a subtle combination of a parts of the Orchestra that blended but retained their own identity. But the volume, it seemed like he'd found the control and set it at 11 at times! This may have been the theatre (certainly the coughing was the loudest I've ever heard) but I didn’t notice this back in the spring for WNO. Not to worry, Lippi could match the 11 and Son was capable of saoaring past 12. I have a hunch that we'll be hearing a lot more from Wilson."


Yes I hope ENO are back on track, Iolanthe was similarly packed and we're off to Lucia next.

I was there last Saturday matinee and enjoyed the production very much, particularly the choral work. If I have one complaint, it's that I wasn't too fond of the arrangement of "It Ain't Necessarily So," and I thought the singer who played Sportin' Life was among the weakest of the leads, although he was ok.

Just had a look at the Met site and see that it looks like it will be a different cast to that at the ENO.Quite a few of the EN O cast were American so I thought they might be at the Met, I suspect they have gone for bigger names.

Im sure this and Arknaten will return. ENO (like any opera company) need hits they can revive