Cory Weaver
Washington Nationwide Opera premiered the ultimate manufacturing of its 2024-2025 season Friday night time with a revival of a well-tested Porgy and Bess manufacturing from Inventive Director Francesca Zambello. If Porgy is serving as a crowd-pleasing nearer right here — a quasi-musical for an organization that has bucked that development to date — that doesn’t reduce the large dramatic and musical calls for of this singular work, calls for that WNO met with an impressively well-rounded manufacturing.
The sturdy set of principals assembled right here was led by the Porgy of Michael Sumuel. There’s an irresistible high quality in how the just about tough, granitic texture of Sumuel’s bass-baritone blossoms in Porgy’s lyrical passages, a mirror of the duality between his marginal standing on this society and wealthy inside life. Sumuel was fascinating in Porgy’s signature moments like when Bess tells him that she would moderately be with him than Crown, his sound gaining metal because the information of Bess’s love immediately turns into the central reality of his life.
The chief weapon in Brittany Renee’s vocal arsenal was a golden bloom within the higher register which she used repeatedly to chop on to Bess’s emotional core. Bess’s confrontation with Crown on Kittiwah Island was performed with a harrowing depth, whereas her confession to Porgy that she isn’t respectable sufficient for him was uncooked and heartbreaking. She had much less presence additional down the employees, nonetheless, which was problematic earlier within the function, earlier than the friendlier lyrical music begins, and contributed to a scattered introduction for Bess.
Kenneth Kellogg, a former WNO younger artist who has had an extended affiliation with the corporate, was a supremely menacing Crown. His cavernous bass had an athletic high quality that successfully imposed itself on the ensembles Crown terrorizes, although his stamina flagged a bit beneath the pressures of Crown’s expansive ultimate storm scene in opposition to the total refrain. Towering over the remainder of the forged, this was a powerful bodily efficiency as effectively, Kellogg ranging in regards to the stage with an impunity that made clear nobody was secure from his grasp.
Amber Monroe’s blistering rendition of “My man’s gone now” was the primary nice musical highpoint of the present. One other returning WNO younger artist, Monroe introduced an entire vocal package deal to bear on the usual, with an pressing, wailing high anchored to a resonant chest voice. Right here and in Serena’s prayer over Bess, Monroe leaned into idiomatic vocal results in approach that added further immediacy and colour to the vocal efficiency.
Tenor Chauncey Packer did a lot to shore up the musical theatre components of this Porgy together with his flip as a flamboyant and malevolent Sportin’ Life, a shiny, chopping tenor and vivid characterization enlivening ensembles and the catchy “Ain’t essentially so.” Denyce Graves added some veteran star energy, fortunately making a meal of Catfish Row matron Maria, although at instances she gave the impression to be pushing a bit on the limits of what her present vocal property would enable.
Cory Weaver
As younger mom Clara, present WNO younger artist Viviana Goodwin dispatched her opening “Summertime” with a gorgeous, high-lying soprano, although she appeared a bit cautious for opening night time, bolstered by comparability with Bess’s show-stopping reprisal afterward. Baritone Benjamin Taylor introduced an interesting core sound to husband Jake, although he misplaced energy within the decrease finish of the function.
Kwamé Ryan and the WNO Orchestra delivered a weighty studying of George Gershwin’s rating, significantly within the work’s surging emotional excessive factors and elaborate ensemble set items which got here off with readability and path. The jazz materials was built-in effectively however didn’t fairly obtain the sensation of riotous mixture doable within the passages the place it figures most prominently, leaving materials just like the opening collection of scenes feeling a bit routine. Responsive dynamics from the WNO Refrain added depth and form in locations just like the funeral and storm scenes.
The explanations for the endurance of this manufacturing, which first appeared at WNO in 2005 and has been broadly seen across the U.S., are clear. Zambello is delivering straight-down-the-middle, broadly interesting theater right here, making a Porgy designed for and eminently snug within the opera home. Catfish row teems with incident and large crowd scenes have a way of scale and stream, together with memorable thrives just like the drowning of Jake and Clara above the assembled refrain or the stirring finale exit for Porgy. A small corps of dancers and lightweight choreography for the refrain provides a way of event to the larger choral set items with out crossing the road into full blown musical theater numbers. Some unfocused patches crop up right here and there, like Porgy’s awkward killing of Crown, however by and enormous the manufacturing strikes a powerful steadiness of the intimate and epic.
The sturdy enchantment of the bodily manufacturing is a giant a part of the success, providing a timeless imaginative and prescient of Catfish Row directly dilapidated and crammed with colour. Units by Peter J. Davison ship a monumental framework commensurate with Porgy’s scale, particularly within the spectacular deserted theme park for Kittiwah Island. Mark McCullough’s unique lighting design (A.J. Guban can also be credited for this revival) brings the set to life with sensible but pure heat to evoke the coastal milieu and contributes a lot to the dramatic stage photos that punctuate the present’s large moments.
