Porgy & Bess' Crown to be Lester Lynch instead of Gregg Baker; Anna Netrebko gives up July first

Porgy & Bess/Lester Lynch sings Red Headed Woman

Lester Lynch sings Red Headed Woman in Porgy & Bess

Lester Lynch will perform the role of the womanizing Crown in Porgy & Bess instead of Gregg Baker, who plays Crown in the DVD. Here's a current photo of Lester from Lyric Chicago in November. Here's Lester singing Red Headed Woman from Porgy & Bess. Lester played Porgy at Lyric Chicago while Laquita Mitchell debuted as Clara, the young mother. He also played Crown in the alternate cast. Laquita will be Bess to Lester's Porgy at SFO.

SFO's director of Porgy & Bess, Francesca Zambello/Director/Porgy & Bess Francesca Zembello, pictured left, says she doesn't know why for sure that Lester will replace Baker as Crown. I told Francesca I just noticed the name change on the website Friday night but there's been no press release.

Francesca will also be directing Lester as Porgy at Kennedy Center next summer and she emails back Saturday morning that

I am very happy to have Lester back in the PORGY family.

He is a wonderful Crown and gave a stunning role debut this fall in Chicago.

Meanwhile. What strikes me is the history of Porgy as described by Lyric Chicago. Historically,

Principal cast members included Leontyne Price, William Warfield, Cab Calloway and Maya Angelou . . .

Here's Cab Calloway as Sportin' Life singing It Ain't Necessarily So on the Ed Sullivan Show . . . The things you are liable to read in the Bible . . . ain't necessarily so . . . Jonah he lived in a whale . . . He made his home in that fish's abdomen . . .

Sammy Davis Jr. also performed Sportin' Life as did Barak Obama, ya you knew he was gifted . . .

Lyric Chicago continues.

In the 60s and 70s, Porgy and Bess languished because of bitter race criticism from prominent Black artists such as Duke Ellingon who said, “the times are here to debunk Gershwin's lampblack Negoisms.” The Negro Repertory Company of Seattle planned its production of Porgy and Bess by the Federal Theater Project, however it was cancelled because the cast disagreed with aspects of Black lifestyles and the cast speaking in dialect. Actor Harry Belafonte refused to appear as Porgy in the movie version of the musical, and Sidney Poitier was offered the role but refused to participate in the production.

Regardless of the early racial controversy, Porgy and Bess survived and emerged as a critically acclaimed opera.
Ultimately, Porgy and Bess emerged as one of the most significant operas created.

Here's Leontyne Price with Bess You is My Woman Now, 1952.

I see by a little internet research that Lester has also performed with Mary Dunleavy in La Traviata. Mary sang Gilda in the production of Rigoletto I supered in; Mary returns to SFO in a more light hearted Mozart creation, The Abduction from the Seraglio.

Lester, described as a Verdi baritone and who went to Julliard, has played Rigoletto.

Just for fun, here's Miles Davis playing Summertime in 1958, the year before I was born. I saw his pictures on the wall in the music recording studio downstairs at the Berkeley studios of Saul Zantz, of Amadeus fame.

Yes it's Summertime . . . for Billie Holiday, Beyonce, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, Will Smith (he was young and rappin'), Jill Scott & George Benson (live), Renee Olstead (red headed woman we were warned of?), Julie Andrews;

and barihunk Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Bess You is My Woman Now (damn right I is) . . .

Dmitri the baritone will be in SFO's Il Trovatore as Count di Luna. September 11 through October 6, 2009. By Verdi.

Speaking of Russian opera singers with striking looks . . .

SFO did however issue a press release when Anna Netrebko gave up one performance of Violetta in La Traviata, on July first only. Anna, below left.

Anna Netrebko/Soprano Violetta/La Traviata/San Francisco Opera/Photo: Ruven Afanador

Violetta will be performed now by three different sopranos, Ailyn Perez appearing on July first. Ailyn participated in SFO's 2005 Merola program. She has played Ann Trulove in A Rake's Progress; Gilda in Rigoletto. She's pictured below.

Ailyn Perez/soprano Violetta/La Traviata/San Francisco Opera

For more info: www.SFOpera.com

Photos of Ailyn Perez, Francesca Zambello courtesy of SFO

Photo Anna Netrebko: Ruven Afanador

The writer wishes to dedicate today's column to Isa Magomedov and his wife Jasmine. He offered to lend me his computer when I started to write at Examiner.com and he makes this column possible. I've found my calling he says. I also wish to congratulate him and his wife Jasmine on their recent accomplishments. Jasmine finished her masters in education and Isa finished his film degree. He also just got his American citizenship.

I met him on the set of a German version of the Love Boat, which has been on in Germany for about twenty years. Here he and I are with the cast on Alcatraz just before the fog blanketed the water. He and I have worked on a few projects together since then, including a Japanese version of Sideways and a Bollywood film with Saif Ali Khan called Love Aaj Kal.