‘Porgy & Bess’ musically dramatised by NCJ

The creative fiction that started life in 1925 as Porgy, a novel by DuBose Heyward, has undergone at least a dozen professional iterations, the most popular being a first-of-its-kind black opera, Porgy & Bess. Yet another version has been produced by the National Chorale of Jamaica (NCJ) and dubbed a “musical dramatisation”. It was staged at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, on Wednesday evening.

The original opera, composed by George Gershwin, with a libretto by Hayward and lyrics by George’s brother, Ira, was first performed in Boston in September 1935 and later moved to Broadway, New York City. Now one of the best known operas, with all its bells and whistles, it can last up to four hours.

With a 15-minute intermission, the NCJ production lasted an hour and a half. It was pared down to, essentially, 17 songs separated by clearly delivered, offstage narration of the story by Judith Ewart. Conducted by Winston Ewart, a founding member and long-time musical director of the NCJ, the singers were sensitively accompanied by pianists Dr Richard Beckford and Yanique Leiba Ebanks.

The 52-year-old NCJ has a core of 25 singing members and hosts two major seasons annually. The May-June season, known in recent times as Summer Breeze, consists of popular songs, while the November season features major classical works.

Jamaica’s most popular opera singer, bass-baritone Sir Willard White sang the title role in the NCJ’s 2015 production of Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, and he and his wife, Lady Sylvia Kervorkian-White (soprano), who was also in that production, returned to Jamaica to star in Wednesday’s show. Their performances should remain long in the memory of the large audience, not only because of their excellent voices, but also because of their textured acting as the story took them on an emotional rollercoaster ride.

Porgy is a cripple – and White used two walking sticks –who finds love with Bess, who is at different times ill-treated by her boyfriend, Crown (Michael Sutherland) and seduced by a drug dealer, Sporting Life (Brenton McLean). Offstage, Porgy kills Crown in a fight and is sent to prison. (Only some of this action was actually staged; the more melodramatic parts of the story were narrated.) Another outstanding singer was Christine MacDonald, who had two roles, Clara and Serena.

Though the stage was open, with no set, the realistic costumes helped create the illusion of the environment. The action takes place in Catfish Row, a poor, black tenement community on the waterfront of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1920s. Mainly, though, the production was an aural delight. Among the 17 songs performed were all the ones that have become popular even outside the show - Summertime, A Woman is a Sometime Thing, My Man’s Gone, I Got Plenty o’ Nothing and I’m on my Way.

You can hear these songs by White as Porgy, on a 1977 Grammy-winning recording which was conducted by Lorin Maazel. Since then, White has received many other honours in Jamaica and the UK.

entertainment@gleanerjm.com