Cory Weaver

Washington National Opera premiered the final production of its 2024-2025 season Friday night with a revival of a well-tested Porgy and Bess production from Artistic Director Francesca Zambello. If Porgy is serving as a crowd-pleasing closer here — a quasi-musical for a company that has bucked that trend so far — that doesn’t lessen the huge dramatic and musical demands of this singular work, demands that WNO met with an impressively well-rounded production.

The strong set of principals assembled here was led by the Porgy of Michael Sumuel. There is an irresistible quality in how the almost rough, granitic texture of Sumuel’s bass-baritone blossoms in Porgy’s lyrical passages, a mirror of the duality between his marginal status in this society and rich inner life. Sumuel was captivating in Porgy’s signature moments like when Bess tells him that she would rather be with him than Crown, his sound gaining steel as the knowledge of Bess’s love instantly becomes the central fact of his life.

The chief weapon in Brittany Renee’s vocal arsenal was a golden bloom in the upper register which she used time and again to cut directly to Bess’s emotional core. Bess’s confrontation with Crown on Kittiwah Island was played with a harrowing intensity, while her confession to Porgy that she isn’t decent enough for him was raw and heartbreaking. She had less presence further down the staff, however, which was problematic earlier in the role, before the friendlier lyrical music begins, and contributed to a scattered introduction for Bess.

Kenneth Kellogg, a former WNO young artist who has had a long association with the company, was a supremely menacing Crown. His cavernous bass had an athletic quality that effectively imposed itself on the ensembles Crown terrorizes, though his stamina flagged a bit under the pressures of Crown’s expansive final storm scene against the full chorus. Towering over the rest of the cast, this was an impressive physical performance as well, Kellogg ranging about the stage with an impunity that made clear no one was safe from his grasp.

Amber Monroe’s blistering rendition of “My man’s gone now” was the first great musical highpoint of the show. Another returning WNO young artist, Monroe brought a complete vocal package to bear on the standard, with an urgent, wailing top anchored to a resonant chest voice. Here and in Serena’s prayer over Bess, Monroe leaned into idiomatic vocal effects in way that added extra immediacy and color to the vocal performance.

Tenor Chauncey Packer did much to shore up the musical theatre elements of this Porgy with his turn as a flamboyant and malevolent Sportin’ Life, a bright, cutting tenor and vivid characterization enlivening ensembles and the catchy “Ain’t necessarily so.” Denyce Graves added some veteran star power, happily making a meal of Catfish Row matron Maria, though at times she seemed to be pushing a bit at the limits of what her current vocal estate would allow.

Cory Weaver

As young mother Clara, current WNO young artist Viviana Goodwin dispatched her opening “Summertime” with an attractive, high-lying soprano, though she seemed a bit cautious for opening night, reinforced by comparison with Bess’s show-stopping reprisal later on. Baritone Benjamin Taylor brought an appealing core sound to husband Jake, though he lost power in the lower end of the role.

Kwamé Ryan and the WNO Orchestra delivered a weighty reading of George Gershwin’s score, particularly in the work’s surging emotional high points and elaborate ensemble set pieces which came off with clarity and direction. The jazz material was integrated efficiently but didn’t quite achieve the feeling of riotous combination possible in the passages where it figures most prominently, leaving material like the opening series of scenes feeling a bit routine. Responsive dynamics from the WNO Chorus added depth and shape in places like the funeral and storm scenes.

The reasons for the staying power of this production, which first appeared at WNO in 2005 and has been widely seen around the U.S., are clear. Zambello is delivering straight-down-the-middle, broadly appealing theater here, creating a Porgy designed for and eminently comfortable in the opera house. Catfish row teems with incident and big crowd scenes have a sense of scale and flow, including memorable flourishes like the drowning of Jake and Clara above the assembled chorus or the stirring finale exit for Porgy. A small corps of dancers and light choreography for the chorus gives a sense of occasion to the bigger choral set pieces without crossing the line into full blown musical theater numbers. Some unfocused patches crop up here and there, like Porgy’s awkward killing of Crown, but by and large the production strikes an impressive balance of the intimate and epic.

The durable appeal of the physical production is a big part of the success, offering a timeless vision of Catfish Row at once dilapidated and filled with color. Sets by Peter J. Davison deliver a monumental framework commensurate with Porgy’s scale, especially in the impressive abandoned theme park for Kittiwah Island. Mark McCullough’s original lighting design (A.J. Guban is also credited for this revival) brings the set to life with brilliant yet natural warmth to evoke the coastal milieu and contributes much to the dramatic stage pictures that punctuate the show’s big moments.