Summertime and the livin' is easy...It's a balmy evening on Catfish Row; a hypnotic heat permeates the calm. On the horizon a storm is brewing.
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Porgy and Bess, set in a nondescript, crumbling tenement on the waterfront in the deep south of the USA, is a story of broken dreams and faded hopes; of dignity and betrayal.
It is a poignant tale of a decent, lonely man called Porgy and his love for the beautiful, bewitching Bess.
Written at the very end of the Great Depression in 1935, Porgy and Bess has become perhaps the quintessential American opera - a symbol of hope in a time that was so often hopeless; a demonstration of love and loyalty in desperate times.
George Gershwin's score is full of songs famous in their own right including It ain't necessarily so, I got plenty o' nuttin and Bess, you is my woman now; songs that still capture the heart and stir the emotions 80 years after they were written.
In a new production for Opéra de Lyon, dynamic choreographers José Montalvo and Dominique Hervieu capture the salty, sassy, sardonic essence of Porgy and Bess complete with state-of-the art video imagery and high energy dance. With their Montalvo-Hervieu dance company they had a huge Festival hit in 2007 with On Danse.
The impact is diminished in the surrounding visual chaos.
The productions...is well worth a visit.
It's finely conducted...and quite impeccably played.
The Gershwins would have loved it.
What the production will not be remembered for is the quality of its diction.
Shame, shame, utter shame on the showmakers.
Instead of psychological penetration what we get is a superficial gloss.
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from Saturday August 14, 2010, until Tuesday August 17, 2010. 7.15pm. No performance on the 15th.. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/festival
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