This 'Porgy and Bess' Puts The Songs in the Spotlight

At the start of his novel "Porgy" -- the book that became the play that became the opera "Porgy and Bess" -- DuBose Heyward implores, "God of the White and Black, grant us great hearts . . . that we may understand." But understanding came only gradually to Gershwin's opera. Although poet Langston Hughes said that librettist and co-lyricist Heyward saw, "with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that make them come alive," many African Americans were disturbed by a work whose characters live in poverty, take drugs and explode into violence.

The beauties of Gershwin's music, which melds jazz, blues and spirituals with operatic arias and recitatives, have in recent years pushed the racial controversy into the background. And it was Gershwin's music alone that captivated the audience in a National Philharmonic concert performance of "Porgy and Bess" at Strathmore Music Center on Saturday night.

It was peculiar in the extreme to hear a tale of life in the rundown part of steamy summer South Carolina while sitting in Strathmore's bright, modern concert hall on a chilly midwinter evening. But the orchestra's playing swept the audience away, as Gary M. Schneider conducted with just the right mixture of piquancy and swelling emotion. And bass Kevin Deas -- leaning on a chair in the absence of a goat cart -- was a vibrant Porgy, whether lamenting the "lonesome road" of his life, perking along in "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin' " or proclaiming, "Oh Lawd, I'm on my way" at the end.

The other soloists had fine moments, although never at Deas's level. Marquita Lister was intense as Bess, but her pronunciation was not always clear. Terry Cook was full of swagger as Crown, and his voice was an appropriate growl.

Eric Lee Johnson was nasal and a bit off pitch as Sportin' Life, but his interplay with the 200-strong Duke Ellington School of the Arts Concert Choir during "It Ain't Necessarily So" was a high point of the evening. Another high point was Tiffany Jackson's emotionally searing "My Man's Gone Now."

Edward Pleasant gave real swing to "A Woman Is a Sometime Thing," and Melissa Givens offered a lovely rendition of the iconic "Summertime."

This was essentially a greatest-hits performance, with narrator Blake Robison explaining the action. The result was vocal but wholly nonvisual drama -- a "Porgy and Bess" best experienced with eyes closed. But at the end, the multiracial, multiethnic, multi-age audience erupted in applause so volcanic that it seemed great hearts had indeed been granted to all.