Porgy and Bess

This show has now closed, click here for a listing of current and future London shows

Musical closed 5 May 2007

Savoy Theatre The Strand, London

The Masterpiece - Reborn as a Musical

Since its original performance in New York in 1935, George and Ira Gershwin's Porgy and Bess has gone on to achieve unparalleled fame. Now London audiences can enjoy this major London West End revival of this classic musical opera in a new slimmed-down version by the acclaimed director Trevor Nunn and featuring new orchestrations by Gareth Valentine.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy

"A spectacular theatrical evening pounding with passionate song" The Times

The cast features Clarke Peters and Nicola Hughes in the title roles of 'Porgy' and 'Bess' along with Cornell S John as 'Crown', O-T Fagbenle 'Sporting Life', Dawn Hope 'Serena', Melanie E Marshall 'Maria', Lorraine Velez 'Clara', Edward Baruwa 'Jake', Des Coleman 'Mingo', Sam Douglas 'Detective', Harry Ditson 'Mr Archdale/Coroner' and Maurey Richards 'Peter' (casting subject to change).

"A masterpiece - sheer bliss - the greatest songs ever written" The Independent

Porgy and Bess has been extensively reworked and re-orchestrated to draw more deeply on the story's Southern roots and injected with renewed verve and pace. This fresh interpretation of Porgy and Bess brings to the Savoy Theatre in London one of the biggest companies in the West End - a 60-strong company, with 40 in the cast and a 20-piece orchestra in this brand new £3 million musical production specially adapted and directed by Trevor Nunn.

"Overpoweringly moving - Trevor Nunn at his best - It's a wonderful night" The Daily Telegraph

"[Trevor Nunn's] deft and sometimes storming musical reworking of Porgy and Bess... has been substantially re-orchestrated here - with the recitative removed... As soon as Lorraine Velez's Clara wanders across the scruffy tenement courtyard of Catfish Row - singing the opening lullaby, 'Summertime', to her baby - this version feels closer to life, more natural. Operatic sopranos always make that song sound over-polished. Here the melody's underlying lovely, relaxed lilt is allowed to come to the fore." The Independent on Sunday

Clarke Peters - "Superb as Porgy" The Daily Telegraph

"Trevor Nunn's foot-tappingly magnificent adaptation of the classic Gershwin opera at the Savoy Theatre - is a delight for the eyes, the cars and the brain... David Braun-White's musical direction does full justice to the sublime lyrics and all the principals sing like angels... The chemistry between Hughes and Peters is electrifying... a smouldering, smoky and magnificent, production." The Sunday Telegraph

Nicolas Hughes - "Fabulous as Bess" The Independent

"Together with musical director and master butcher Gareth Valentine, Trevor Nunn has turned Porgy and Bess into a piece for a 20-strong pit orchestra, replacing recitative with spoken dialogue, and introducing new dance sequences. It has cost £3.5m to stage. And it is virtuoso filleting. If there is still some flaky flesh on the bone that is because the plot is an insoluble problem... Just as well then that the unflashy integrity of Nunn's production, the five-star quality of the performances and the marvellous music make up for the plot's deficiencies" The Observer

The director and adaptater Trevor Nunn on his production of Porgy and Bess: "I've directed Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at Glyndebourne, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and in a production filmed by Primetime television. I think the work is a masterpiece, I never tire of listening to it, and each time I work on it I discover new things in the richly varied score... For several years now, I have been discussing with my friends in the Gershwin family, the possibility of developing a version of the piece, that in vocal range and structure would have the quality of music theatre rather than of opera. The opera has already been fully revealed as a work of genius and, whatever we do in this version, the opera will still be there in all its hugely demanding glory, ready to be performed anywhere in the world... We decided to use the structure of what in the trade is known as 'a book musical'. That means that, instead of the narrative being communicated through relatively slow moving recitative, we have scenes as you do in a play. So the language, taken from Heyward's original novel Porgy and his stage play of the same name, can be quite a lot more complex than the words that were selected to be set to the music, but the playing time is shorter. The other changes are to the key structure, with the aim of giving us a raw 'street' sound, so we should hear a scene very differently."