Waiting for Baz Luhrman's Stirring **Porgy + Bess** Rock Opera

Andrew and I went to Porgy and Bess at the Seattle Opera this Sunday. 

Although I am years removed from a small African-American community in 1920's Carolina, this opera does somehow hit closer to home from my perspective. Opera is generally dark, dramatic and even seedy, but it usually retains a sort of mythic quality beyond merely the disparate time and locations in which it is set. Opera, more than any genre, is generally intended to be larger than life, making the characters demi-gods with flaws as great as their heroics. What is particularly striking about Porgy and Bess (aside from the musical blending of gospel, jazz and classical music - which swings the gamut of disorienting to inspired) is that the subject matter has a certain modern grit to it that intentionally veers from the mythical veneer of classical opera. The major elements of the story include domestic violence, drug addiction, drug dealing, many undertones of prostitution, racism, poverty, gambling, and destruction wreaked by one big hurricane that can't help now bringing reminiscence of Hurricane Katrina. The music may veer between Puccini and Paganini, but the plot sometimes feels like a lost episode of The Wire. Appropriate for some of the literary styles of the Southern 1920's (P&B is based on a novel from that time and it is typical). 

The music, as mentioned, is interesting and my first experience of it looong ago was a rather strong rejection of what I recognized as some of my favorite jazz tunes being ruined by warbles. The music is pure Gershwin. Seconds into the overture, shades of Rhapsody in Blue are overwhelming and his particular elan is never long absent - but blended and woven with a myriad of influences. I think in many ways, what Gershwin did (in his intention to create an American Folk Opera) was to use classical production and scoring concepts to celebrate a spiritual musical tradition unique(ish) to these communities. Spiritual music is born from hardships - being torn from one's native land, thrown into slavery or poverty, living at mere subsistence and losing loved ones constantly. It's the same traditions that brought about blues. What is amazing about spiritual/gospel music to me (and I am no expert on any of this, so don't quote me as such) is the overwhelming element of joy and hope that comes from within this music. Noting can be a more stirring religious testament than that exuberance. Gershwin recognized this and blended these traditions with Jewish melodies (another rich tradition of beautiful music wrought from suffering, alienation and slavery). To this, he added blues, jubilees, and work songs from those communities and finally executed the olio with his jazz training.

This is even interwoven into the plot to some degree.The story is - appropriately - a downer. Hey, it's opera so this is par for the course. Huge swaths of likeable cast members die not through mechanations and plots of any evil villains, but by a force of nature. A baby is orphaned and then abandoned again. The heroine escapes an abusive relationship and tries to get herself off of dope and alcoholism, but succumbs again to both at various times.The hero gets away with murder only because as a crippled beggar, the police never took him seriously and took him in only to harass the weaker members of the community. At the end, the hero realizes that his love has left him once again and sets off to find her in New York, an oddly ambiguous ending, to be sure, but the only appropriate one. It can't end well. We all understand this opera to be just a little too grounded in reality for him to succeed in making it there, finding her, weaning her off her addiction, not getting killed on the way... But by not showing this, the opera ends with a surge of hope and joy that is at great odds with the circumstances of all of the singers. And it's this hope and joy that we see in the music that Gershwin celebrated, now personified.

It's quite a moving moment.

This opera is not close to my favorite; nor is it close to my favorite work of Gershwin's. There is still something a little confusing to my ear about the blending of styles. But it is impressive for the reasons listed above and for the very niche talents and abilities required of the performers. Many, in fact, make a career of Porgy and Bess. Sportin' Life, for instance, who is the dope dealer and who gets one of the best songs of the whole darned opera, is a role that requires a blending of blues, broadway and opera range both vocally and physically. Needless to say, our performers credits were almost exclusively this role. Also needless to say, his costume was pretty - er - sportin'?



Please find me this man's tailor. I think I'm in love.