Well, if Britten is the most famous English-language opera composer, here's possibly the most famous single English-language opera. American opera, certainly. Nicely timed for Black History Month, we have the Met's new production Live in HD. Why not? It seems a little weird that I hadn't seen it before this, but I think that's at least partially due to not being quite sure what it really was: the only thing I knew from it was "Summertime"--the most-covered piece of music ever, with tens of thousands of recordings--and, like, it's a pop song. How is this from an opera? Not that I have anything against musical theatre or anything, but in that case it wouldn't necessarily be something I'd've focused on. It was actually a revelation to hear that song--it opens the opera--sung as an operatic aria, and suddenly understand. It's recognizably the same thing, but also very different. Anyway, definitely an opera, this, though it could easily be--and has been done--as a musical.
But the problem is, I'm very concerned that I don't have anything useful to say about it. "You don't have anything useful to say about anyopera." Well, that's as may be, but at least when I'm writing about something slightly less massive and massively known, I don't feel as self-conscious about that. But here, I am. Should I point out the irony of the fact that the African American opera was written by a white guy with a libretto by a white guy based on a book by another white guy? It's been done! Should I note that it's in some ways a little bit racially problematic? Ditto. Actually, I would strongly recommend that any interested parties listen to the episode on the subject of the Met Opera Guild podcast, which is a very good overview. I often find the podcasts in this series less than compelling because they consist primarily of detailed plot summaries, and I'm not sure what the point is--if I'm interested enough to want to know the plot, I'm definitely interested enough to actually seeit!--but this one really delves into the issues surrounding Porgy and Bess, and even the short-ish plot summary includes useful analysis.
Anyway, wanna know what? I liked it. Quite a lot. See, again, I feel self-conscious about even trying to summarize it, because is this news to anyone? Well, Bess is a woman struggling with drug addiction and, it's implied, a former prostitute, who escapes her violent boyfriend, Crown, and gets together with the crippled Porgy. This goes well for a while, until Porgy kills Crown; he isn't actually a suspect in the murder, but he's taken in to identify the body, leaving Bess sufficiently freaked out that when the suave drug dealer/pimp known as Sportin' Life asks her to go off to New York with him, she does it. Porgy gets out, and resolves to find her, even though he doesn't have a clear idea of where or indeed what New York is. That's all, although it might not give you a full picture of the work: there's a lot of slice-of-life stuff here that doesn't really relate to the main story. And that's fine.
I mean, you can see why it's popular. Gershwin was definitely a tunesmith, and the fact that I only knew "Summertime" definitely says more about my sheltered existence than anything else. Certainly, the appeal of things like "Ain't necessarily so," "I got plenty of nothing," and especially the love duet "Bess you is my woman now." I should probably also give a shout-out to Ira Gershwin for the lyrics; this opera is often credited to "the Gershwins," and I think ARGH NO that's not the convention; librettists aren't mentioned in the same breath as composers (I also think that about Gilbert and Sullivan), but, well, you can kind of understand why we do. Anyway, now I feel more cultured. It's pretty darned tragic that George died so young, depriving the world of god knows how much more iconic music.
This Live in HD performance featured something I'd never seen before: a pre-opera announcement by Peter Gelb. As I understand it, these things are generally bad news because they mean that one of the singers you wanted to see has been replaced by an understudy, but not so here: all he had to say was that Eric Owens (as Porgy) had a cold but would be performing anyway. The only point of which seems to be "if he sucks, that's why," which doesn't instill a great deal of confidence. But he was fine; I suppose someone more sensitive to these things than me could have sensed that something was off, but I did not. Angel Blue, as everyone says, kills it as Bess; I'd only seen her before in a small role as Helen of Troy in Boito's Mefistofele, but she definitely deserves to be a lot more well-known. However--curveball!--to me, the highlight here was actually tenor Frederick Ballentine, making his Met debut as Sportin' Life. He brings real insinuating, serpentine charisma to the role, making an extremely bad guy (he's a worse person than Crown, I'd say, if less overtly violent) seem perversely appealing.
The production is fine, if, I can't help feeling, slightly too crowded for its own good. Also--and I don't know whether this is more a matter of the production or if it's just inherent in the piece itself--Bess' struggles with drug addiction and her efforts to leave her past behind feel sort of clumsy, like she really just ping-pongs back and forth as the plot requires, rather than having realistic internal struggles. Or maybe I'm just asking for something that opera as a form isn't super-well-equipped to provide.
Gershwin insisted that the opera should have an all-black cast (except for a few white cops limited to speaking roles), and the family's estate mandates that that be the case to this day. That does raise potentially prickly problems about who counts as "black" (there are one or two chorus members here who, if you saw them on the street, you probably wouldn't think of as such); still, in spite of whatever problems you might have with aspects of the story, that's very progressive, and if it weren't so, it probably wouldn't maintain its popularity today: if it had historically been performed in blackface, it would probably today be considered too toxic to perform. You do have to wonder, though: if it's possible to get high-quality all-black cast--as it very clearly is--then WHY are other Met productions so overwhelmingly white? I know that color-blind casting is generally the rule, which is good ("you're okay with an all-black cast for Porgy and Bess but not an all-white cast for others operas, I see how it is you vile sjw hypocrite." Yes. Quite.), but the way that shakes out, well...I mean, I know there are reasons for that that aren't motivated by racism, but STILL, it's at least something to think about.
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