Lyric's 'Porgy and Bess' rises up singing

November 20, 1:03 PMChicago Theatre Review ExaminerCatey Sullivan

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   You know how it starts. Those high, aching notes that are half lament, half lullaby, a silvery sad hymn to a fleeting season. “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” From that sublime marriage of lyric and melody, the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s emotionally opulent production of “Porgy and Bess” launches into George Gershwin’s ground-breaking masterpiece, "Porgy and Bess." 
   On a towering, five-story set the color of rust and heat (designer Peter J. Dawson drew his inspiration from WPA murals) Catfish Row leaps to life, a bustling sprawl of gamblers and dealers, lovers and fishermen, addicts and mothers and murderers and hustlers. “One of these mornings, you’re gonna rise up singing,” Clara (Laquita Mitchell, in a luminous Lyric debut) croons to her infant, and the impoverished, ramshackle Row becomes tinted with hope. One of these mornings may be a long time coming, but through all hardships and sorrow of “Porgy and Bess,” a defiant, undimmed faith in a both humankind and a better tomorrow gleams.
   Gershwin’s score is an American treasure, as is its source - DuBose Heyward’s novel “Porgy.” Paired with Heyward’s libretto (with lyrics by Heyward and Ira Gershwin), the music is gorgeously complex, an ever-changing current of classical arias and catchy melodies merging with jumping jazz rhythms and Gospel influences. From the unabashed, strutting irreverence of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” to the fathoms-deep mournfulness of “My Man’s Gone Now,” the folk opera sweeps along in waves of emotion.
   From the start, conductor John DeMain* deftly captures the shimmering nuances of mood. The cast is up to the mercurial challenges of tragedy threaded through with improbably happiness.
   The rock of the production is Gordon Hawkins* as the crippled beggar Porgy. Leaning heavily on a crutch and dragging one leg behind him, Hawkins is a presence of towering dignity and high spirited joy, making his entrance with “luck ridin’ high’ on a Saturday night, pockets flush with a good days’ panhandling. Hawkins is blessed with a resonant baritone that seems to originate not in the chest so much as the furthest interior of the heart. Critically, he also exudes the incorruptible human decency that defines Porgy right through the production’s final, searing moment.
   Hawkins is beautifully matched – and contrasted – by Morenike Fadayomi’s* Bess. In a skintight, slit-to-the-thigh flame orange dress, she shimmies like a tropical flower in a hot island breeze, a torrid firestorm of a soprano. The other woman of the Row may dismiss Bess as “liquor-guzzling slut” but in Fadayomi’s layered depiction, Porgy’s woman is far more complicated than that. Sober or high, she carries the crushing freight of “happy dust” on her back. With the likes of Sporting Life (Jermaine Smith, scene stealing as a sharply dressed devil with a voice like honey) pushing his wares on her and the brutal Crown (Lester Lynch,* menacing throughout and downright scary on the profane “Red Headed Woman”) manhandling her into submission, Bess is far more crippled than Porgy will ever be.
   Stage director Francesca Zambello creates stage pictures that burn in the memory, from the teeming streetscape of Catfish Row to isolated pockets of Kittawah Island. Arguably among her most evocative accomplishment comes with the hurricane that hits in the second act. As the cast cowers shoulder-to-shoulder in Clara’s apartment, a fearsome battering of lightning and thunder compete with feverish prayers for the storm to subside. It’s a scene of Biblical fearsomeness, and it captures the deeply rooted spirituality of “Porgy and Bess” as well as its rip-roaring melodrama.

"Porgy and Bess" continues through Dec. 19 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Dr.  An additional performance on Dec. 16 has been added due to heavy ticket demand. Tickets are $32 to $185. For more information, call 312/827-5600 or go to www.lyricopera.org or click here

 *Kelly Kuo conducts Dec. 5, 6
*Lester Lynch plays Porgy Nov. 23, Dec. 5, 12 and 18
*Lisa Daltirus  plays Bess Nov. 23, Dec. 5, 12, 18
*Terry Cook plays Crown Nov. 23, Dec. 5. 12 and 18

Photos by Dan Rest 

Top: Morenike Fadayomi, Gordon Hawkins

Middle: Morenike Fadayomi, Jermaine Smith

Bottom: Morenike Fadayomi