The community on and off the 'Show Boat'

The world has celebrated Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “Show Boat” since 1927, but the Washington National Opera’s new version, directed by Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, is fresh, vigorous and distinctive, emphasizing the world that existed around the showboat performers of 19th-century America.

One hundred singers, actors and dancers participate in this “Show Boat.” Some singers come from the opera world, others from Broadway, but their voices blend seamlessly. “Show Boat” takes the audience through 40 years in the lives of various performers on the Cotton Blossom, a paddlewheel bringing entertainment up and down the Mississippi from the late 1880s to 1927.