This is the year for sumptuous productions of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” The poignant story about the residents of Catfish Row, coupled with the magnificent score, has touched audiences worldwide for 75 years. To celebrate the anniversary, Virginia Opera has mounted a production featuring a remarkable cast and enhanced by dancers and gospel choirs from each Virginia community where the opera is staged.
Virginia Opera closes its 35th anniversary season with Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”
Where: George Mason University Center for the Arts, Fairfax
When: 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Info: $44 to $98; 703-993-2787; gmu.edu/cfa.org
Baritone Michael Redding returns to the Virginia Opera as Porgy. His Bess is soprano Kearstin Piper Brown, while Timothy Robert Blevins reprises the role of the villainous Crown performed with the opera in its 2000 production of “Porgy and Bess.” Making her Virginia Opera debut as Serena is Chesapeake native Aundi Marie Moore, an alumna of Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists Program and George Mason University.
Redding’s previous appearances with the Opera as Gregorio in “Romeo & Juliet” and Schaunard in “La Boheme” drew critical attention. Although this is his debut as Porgy, he has traveled throughout Europe with New York Harlem Productions’ “Porgy and Bess” as Crown and Jake, roles he frequently performs with opera companies in this country.
“This is not a stand and sing kind of piece, but requires the vocalists to become rapt in the story,” Redding said. “I studied this role a lot and absorbed the characters while on tour doing eight performances a week. I’ve learned so much about Porgy’s music, and I relate to him through the reality I see in life all around me, like the way disabled people move. As a human being, Porgy is optimistic. You can’t fake it because he’s a man of extreme spirituality and passion.”
The book and the opera end abruptly when Bess leaves for New York. Redding points out that nobody knows what happens to Porgy, but the triumphant music of “O Lawd, I’m On My Way” and the faith in God that he projects leave the audience uplifted.
The production’s Serena, soprano Moore, was such a gifted singer at age nine that her mother entrusted her to a local coach who had studied at Juilliard. For four years, she was a member of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts before heading to GMU. By then, her experience singing full operas during high school convinced her that opera was her destiny. The first of her many prizes and awards began coming by age 15, great consolation to the youngster who felt awkward because she was a bit chubby.
“Every kid has something that makes them feel awkward, but when George Shirley heard me sing and invited me to attend the University of Michigan on a full graduate scholarship, I entered a wonderful community that still reaches out to me,” she said. “The experience of working with Placido Domingo in his Young Artists Program was fantastic. I sang the role of Cio-Cio-San my very first year in a version of ‘Madame Butterfly’ presented before local elementary and high school students. This was the first time many of them had heard anyone sing opera, so it was exciting see their faces light up when they came backstage. One of my fondest memories is of learning about zarzuela from Domingo and joining him in a program featuring the music he grew up singing.”
Now hailed as one of America’s leading young sopranos, Moore is excited about performing the role of Serena for the Virginia Opera.
“She’s a complex character, very religious and believing in God’s word, yet she has moments of ugliness,” she said. “After her husband has been killed, she sings ‘My Man’s Gone Now’ and begins to come back. In the end, she has become the root of the community. She’s very protective of its members and doesn’t want Bess and Crown in it.”
