This was my first viewing of Gerschwin’s Porgy and Bess and here is my dilemma (spoilers will follow). I liked almost all aspects of this opera, including the performers, the singing, the music, the staging, the dancing, the story; the entertainment level was very high. Yet, it left me thinking more than feeling. Oh, I felt sympathy for Porgy, for Clara and Jake, and both frustration and sympathy with Bess. Porgy’s goodness was inspirational but also troubling; I didn’t know if we should aspire to his level of goodness or send him for therapy. He saw goodness in Bess that he believed his love could redeem. However, in the end, when he went off to NYC to pursue her, I didn’t foresee a happy ending. Nevertheless, Friday night’s audience responded with enthusiastic applause at every opportunity and inserted a couple of their own. Overall, it’s an excellent production, rich in history, an American opera about America, well worth seeing, still…
Porgy (Michael Sumuel) and Bess (Brittany Renee) embrace. Photo by Cory Weaver; courtesy of Washington National Opera.
Porgy and Bess (1935), takes place in Catfish Row, a small, isolated black fishing community on the coast of South Carolina in the first half of the 20th century. The setting is a dilapidated tenement with an open courtyard. The community is cohesive, both enforcing their social mores and helping each other as best they can. The music was composed by George Gershwin, of “Rhapsody in Blue” fame, as well as other musical compositions; this was his only opera. Dubose Heyward fashioned the storyline drawing on several sources, including his life in Charleston, initially resulting in his novel Porgy, which was then developed into a successful Broadway play by his wife Dorothy Heyward; both served as co-librettists for the opera with Ira Gershwin, George’s also famous brother. This was an all-white team creating an opera about an all-black community, which they termed “an American folk opera”. Composer Gershwin stipulated that only black singers could play the roles to avoid white singers appearing in blackface. This made it impossible in that time to have it performed in major opera houses in the US where black singers were excluded. The opera premiered in 1935, just seventy years after the American Civil War; segregation was the dominant rule. Porgy and Bess first appeared in the Colonial Theatre in Boston before moving to the Alvin Theater on Broadway. When the opera came to DC’s National Theatre in 1936, a cast protest led to the first performance in the theater with an integrated audience. It would be 1955 before a black singer appeared at the Metropolitan Opera and 1985 before Porgy and Bess appeared there. It’s first performance in a major US opera house was in 1976 at the Houston Grand Opera.
Serena (Amber R. Monroe) accosts Crown (Kenneth Kellogg) as Porgy (Michael Sumuel) and Bess (Brittany Renee) wait their turn. Photo by Cory Weaver; courtesy of Washington National Opera.
Productions of the opera have been limited over the years by its perceived racism, principally concerns that it reinforced images of black stereotypes. In a sense, I found Porgy and Bess offensive on many levels, simply by reflecting aspects of real life that many of us struggle with, poverty, isolation, patriarchy, addiction, sexual abuse, and racism, all still with us today in some measure. In the program notes, UNC professor Naomi André says that the opera means different things to different people. She objects to its stereotypes and points out that the dialect used is not true African American vernacular English. Nevertheless, she loves the opera and offered suggestions for its production. I thought the WNO production presented human issues that affect all of us; it explores issues of family, community, religion, and personal struggles that can be found in almost any community and importantly, also shows the love and support therein, and finally, a ray of hope projected by Porgy. It also presented a black community of struggling Americans to a larger American audience and provided black performers opportunities to perform on the stage when opportunities were mostly off limits to black singers, though Dr. André notes this sometimes restricted black singers to mainly those roles. For WNO’s production, all singers are black except the detective and coroner; the conductor is also black. This production was originated by WNO Artistic Director Francesco Zambello, who also directed this performance, the third revival by WNO since first presented in 2005. Porgy and Bess has gained in popularity over years and is sometimes now billed as the Great American Opera.
Sportin’ Life (Chauncey Packer) takes center stage at the party on Kittiwah Island. Photo by Cory Weaver; courtesy of Washington National Opera.
Let’s talk about the music, what I most looked forward to in attending. George Gershwin is a favorite of mine and, I believe, America’s most famous classical composer. This is his only opera. He died in 1937 at the age of 38, just two years after the first performance. I have listened to “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris” more times than I can remember and expect to do so again. The Washington National Opera Orchestra was led by Conductor Kwamé Ryan, Music Director of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Many of the melodic tunes in Porgy and Bess have been covered many times over by singers in many genres since the opera’s appearance. In the program notes, Maestro Ryan states, “First of all, Gershwin was just a great melodist. There’s probably nothing that has broader appeal in music than a memorable tune.” The music in this performance was crisp, clear, highly coordinated, and supportive of the drama on the stage. Personally, I thought the early use of the xylophone and later use of the drums were a little too demonstrative. Still, otherwise, I really enjoyed Gershwin’s music with its typical jazz elements and hummable melodies. In structure, the music was a group of songs, each supporting and adding emphasis to the action on the stage and each scene was strong. The music was critical to the storytelling. However, Gershwin’s score did not effectively use recurring themes to weave the story together as great compositions often do, though “Summertime” is reprised twice after first appearing in the opera. The Washington National Opera Chorus led by Chorus Master Steven Gathman performed beautifully, as is typical.
Spotlight on Clara (Viviana Goodwin) and Jake (Benjamin Taylor) holding their child. Photo by Cory Weaver; courtesy of Washington National Opera.
There is a large cast for this production; in addition to the WNO Orchestra and Chorus, there are 23 named singers and the WNO Corps of Dancers. While I will mention only a few, each member of this highly accomplished cast brought their own special charm to their roles. For opening night, the role of Porgy was sung by bass-baritone Michael Sumuel in winning fashion; he gave us strong, emotionally-laden vocals while having the added difficulty of singing well while moving about the stage, putting much of his weight on a crutch and often getting knocked to the floor. Mr. Sumuel came to WNO just after playing Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Met. Bess was played and sung well by soprano Brittany Renee effectively portraying a woman responding to unconditional love from Porgy while still under the influence of past abuse and drug addiction. Ms. Renee, also a Met veteran, is a Grammy award winner. Crown, Bess’s lover and abuser, was played with charismatic presence and strength by bass Kenneth Kellogg, a favorite of WNO audiences. His leading role in Blue gave me such a favorable impression of him, it was hard to accept him in an abusive guy role. One of the many standouts was tenor Chauncey Packer, who played drug-dealing Sportin’ Life, the snake in Bess’s Garden of Eden, a role he has also played at the Met. With distinguished singing and guile, he charmed in a role where you wanted him to be locked up.
Maria (Denyce Graves) and Clara (Viviana Goodwin). Photo by Cory Weaver; courtesy of Washington National Opera.
The singers in the supporting roles were also standouts. Cafritz young artist soprano Viviana Goodwin as Clara opened the opera with a beautiful rendition of “Summertime” and gave a steady performance as Jake’s wife. Benjamin Taylor who sang Jake has a great baritone voice that stood out. I have praised have previously praised his performances with Opera Philadelphia and Opera Baltimore. Once again mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves practically stole the show with her performance as Maria, the moral backbone of Catfish Row who puts Sportin’ Life in his place. Soprano Amber R. Monroe gave a fine performance as Serena, especially singing of the tune, “My Man’s Gone Now”, and in the church funeral scene.
This production was cleverly and effectively staged. At first I had an issue with the tenement and costumes, with the exception of Bess’s, being in the same drab hue, because it painted everyone with the same brush, as it formed the backdrop of the community in which they were encased. In her review of the 2010 performance by WNO, Post critic Anne Midgette likened the scene to a prison yard and to a significant degree it was, reflecting the society of their time. The scene shifted once to an abandoned amusement park on Kittiwah Island where we got to enjoy some more light-hearted, exuberant singing and dancing, before Crown forced himself once more on Bess, all choreographed quite effectively. Thee scene with the community members huddled in the church while a hurricane roared outside was especially well done.
So, with all that praise, what’s my problem. Simply stated, my initial emotional response to the opera was not as strong as I had anticipated. I found myself thinking more than feeling. It seemed too many things were going on and not enough dealt deeply with. Bess’s changes of direction seemed to happen too quickly. On the other hand, I have been thinking about Porgy and Bess since I saw it Friday night. That is an endorsement of its own, and there is the high entertainment value, and then there are the magnificent tunes.
The Fan Experience: The ten performances of Porgy and Bess were scheduled for May 23, 24 (2), 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 (2). The opera is sung in English with English supertitles projected over the stage. Including one 20-minute intermission, the performance lasted about two hours and forty-five minutes. Pre-opera talks are given for ticket holders one-hour prior to performance time. As of this writing, tickets are available for all remaining performances.
This was Washington National Opera’s final opera of the season. The listing for the 2025-2026 season can be found at this link and subscriptions are available.
Parking in the Kennedy Center is typically plentiful at around $25 per day, with a small discount for Kennedy Center members when reserved ahead of the day. The Metro to Foggy Bottom and the free red Kennedy Center buses, from there to the Kennedy Center running every 15 minutes, are an excellent option. There is an advantage in getting there a bit early. KC frequently has multiple performances on its different stages overlapping that can create traffic jams and sometimes security checks when VIPs attend.
There are snack stands in the main lobby, and on the Terrace level, the KC Café offers food cafeteria style at moderate prices; fine dining is available on the Terrace level in the Roof Terrace Restaurant; a discount is available to KC members. Food and drinks except water are not allowed inside the opera house, but you can purchase reusable capped containers with your drinks that you can take inside. Take the container back with you on your next KC visit to get a discount on your drink.