A Brilliant Cast Dazzles in Gershwin’s American Classic Porgy and Bess at the Kennedy Center

Porgy and Bess

Washington National Opera

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Jordan Wright

May 24, 2025

Michael Sumuel (Porgy) and Brittany Renee (Bess) in Washington National Opera‘s Porgy and Bess at the Kennedy Center (Photo/Cory Weaver)

As one of the most celebrated American operas, Porgy and Bess maintains its broad appeal. With music by George Gershwin and libretto by his brother Ira Gerswhin, hallowed names in the pantheon of composers, alongside the team of Dubose and Dorothy Heyward, it premiered in Boston in 1935 enduring decades of controversy and change. Countless directors have sought to broaden or temper its appeal depending on the political winds of the day, yet it endures as a powerful love story, that like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, doesn’t rely on a happy ending to emphasize its appeal. It’s a story about people, in this case Southern Blacks, who share the same emotional struggles, fears and human connections that people experience all over the world. The difference is that this is the 1930’s South, and despite the legal gains of racial justice after the Civil War, much of the country remained/remains a society based on race and class. Porgy and Bess is still very much a period piece of a time and place with echoes of bygone days, but so are many of our most enduring stories and greatest operas whose central themes focus on the universality of the human enigma.

In the expert hands of Director Francesca Zambello, who brought it to the Kennedy Center stage twenty years before, this quintessential American opera retains its broad appeal with an extraordinary cast filled with glorious African American voices and led by an amazing new Black conductor, Kwamé Ryan in his WNO debut.

My enduring love affair with the opera began decades ago when it was made into a Broadway show and later a film with Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge in the lead roles. Though neither one of these mega stars could sing and professional singers were dubbed in on the recording, these songs became huge hits, and I can recall countless hours listening to it on a record player. Songs like “Summertime”, “A Woman is a Sometime Thing”, “Nightime, Daytime”, “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’”, “Bess, You is My Woman Now”, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”, “I Loves You, Porgy”, “I’m On My Way” and other iconic Gershwin tunes forever cemented in Broadway musical theater anthology brought a bright fusion of opera, jazz and musicals. But I digress with chatter about memories.

Cast of Washington National Opera‘s Porgy and Bess (Photo/Cory Weaver)

The story is set in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1950’s in Catfish Row, a community of poor Blacks who plied the coastal waters as fisherman as the women toiled in White households. It centers around Porgy, a large, crippled, big-hearted man; Bess, his beloved; Crown, her abusive, sometime boyfriend; Sportin’ Life, a slick and slithery drug pusher; Maria, the matriarch of the town; Clara, a new mother and her husband Jake, a fisherman; Serena, one of the ladies, and a large community of their neighbors who, though these women exist in a restrictive bubble, have both agency and resilience.

It does little good to write up the story of their interactions, when it is far easier to google it up as it’s well known to opera buffs and those who saw the movie, even though every production has its own singular approach to its telling.

I want to point out that Eric Sean Fogel’s choreography is of central importance – both in the gambling scenes, the praising God church scenes and the big dance numbers – of special note is Sportin’ Life’s cool dance moves and the crackling electricity of all the other dancers. Mark McCullough’s lighting design adds to the general ambiance – flooding the stage in honey tones for the daybreak scenes where the hustle and bustle of daily life begins, to the dramatic hurricane scenes, which, if you’re not prepared, will startle you out of your seat from the cacophony of lightning and thunder.

Chauncey Packer (Sportin’ Life) and cast of Washington National Opera‘s Porgy and Bess (Photo/Cory Weaver)

Highly recommended!!! I can still feel it straight down inside my bones! Do yourself a favor and snag tickets to this phenomenal staging and enjoy a superb cast in the Gershwin classic. You will witness opera history at its finest.

With Michael Sumuel or Reginald Smith, Jr. as Porgy; Brittany Renee or Alyson Cambridge as Bess; Viviana Goodwin as Clara; Amber R. Monroe as Serena; Denyce Graves as Maria; Chauncey Packer as Sportin’ Life; Kenneth Kellogg or Norman Garrett as Crown; Benjamin Taylor as Jake; Marquita Raley-Cooper as Strawberry Woman; Alexandria Crichlow as Lily; Brittani McNeill as Annie; Jonathan Pierce Rhodes as Mingo; Daniel Sampson as Robbins; Keith Craig as Peter the Honeyman; Ernest Jackson as Nelson; Anthony P. Ballard as Crabman; Nicolas LaGesse as Jim; Jarrod Lee as Undertaker; Scott Ward Abernathy as Detective; and James Whalen as Coroner. With the Washington National Opera Orchestra, the Washington National Opera Chorus and the Washington National Opera Corps of Dancers.

With Set Design by Peter J. Davison and Costume Design by Paul Tazewell.

Through May 31^st at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20566. For tickets and information call the box office at 202.467.4600 or visit www.Kennedy-Center.org.