Porgy and Bess: 5 star review by Tony Challis

This is probably the most stunning and gorgeous show I have ever seen in Edinburgh. There are many wonderful singing voices. The multimedia approach is an absorbing triumph. The big screen is sometimes whole, sometimes split and sometimes concurrent with the action. It accentuates many emotions from the comedy of the flying fish to the anguish of a new widow, and to the raging storm and a drowning within.On top of excellent sets and costumes there is the dancing, which heightens and enlivens many moments. If you think that elegant, poised break dancing is an oxymoron, you should see the opening moments of the second half of this show.Many of us will know the story. Its summertime in Catfish Row and the famous lullaby Summertime is soon heard. Its Saturday evening, and a crap game is in progress. The people are poorly paid workers fisherman, farm workers, and some like Sporting Life who deals in Happy Dust. Crown is a bad guy, Bess is attached to him, but the disabled beggar Porgy is fascinated by her.Life is tough, and punctuated by tragedy, but the warmth and solidarity of the community keeps people going. Violence son breaks out; Crown kills Robbins. This leads to the only intrusion by the white world the police and their abusive interrogations.The dancing is a real joy, and when the cast spread all around the auditorium for I Cant Sit Down I wanted to be up and join them. All those who saw this show will have had an evening they will remember for a very long time.

Reviews by Tony Challis

Stephen K Amos - The Best Medicine

★★★★

Jack the Knife

★★★★

Scott Agnew: Pride (In The Name of Love)

★★★

Connection Failed

★★★★

Man Who Fell Out of Bed

★★★

Cage

★★★

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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. 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.