GENÉVÉ/SCHWEIZ:. Premiered on 10 October 1935 at the Alvin Theatre in New York, George Gershwin’s famous American Folk Opera in three acts and its immortal show tune “Summertime” will be on stage at the Grand Théâtre de Genève from 13 to 24 February 2015 at 7:30 PM, with one matinée performance on 15 February at 3 PM.

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Soprano Morenike Fadayomi, one of the two singers cast in the title role of the Grand Théâtre de Genève’s new production of Catalani’s opera La Wally, will be one of the two singers performing Bess, along with Indira Mahajon. Baritones Alvy Powel and Terry Cook will take turns in singing the role of Porgy.

PORGY AND BESSSM “Summertime and the living is easy, Fish are jumpin’, and the cotton is high.” From the onset, Clara’s lullaby sets the atmosphere of Catfish Row, a fictional tenement on the docks of Charleston, South Carolina. Its quiet sleepiness will soon by disrupted when Porgy, a disabled beggar, gets involved in the confrontation between Sportin’ Life, a dope peddler, and Crown, a stevedore, in order to save Crown’s girl, Bess.

PORGY AND BESS in front left Morenike Fadayomi, Bess, and Terry Cook as Porgy   – direttore William Barkhymer. Foto Luciano Romano

Porgy and Bess shines like a beacon in American music, along with the composer’s other masterpieces Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris.

When he got the idea to portray a 1930’s Afro-American community in the South, the King of Broadway made a brilliant synthesis of European classical music,

American jazz and Afro-American musical traditions. With blues, work songs and spirituals jostling for space with the arias and ensembles more familiar to opera lovers, Gershwin does much more than dabble in the exotic; his different musical worlds come together splendidly, mesmerizing his listeners and taking them to new dimensions.

“Sport´in Life” is dancing. in Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin. Photo from the guesting at Teatro di San Carlo in Napoli. by Luciano Romano.

NEW YORK HARLEM THEATER Founded in 1981, the New York Harlem Theater is made up of Afro-American artists who also perform at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera as well as with the Plácido Domingo opera companies of Washington, DC and Los Angeles. The New York Harlem Theater’s repertoire includes productions of Porgy and Bess, Show Boat, Carmen Jones and Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies. 

Kevin Short as Porgy, in the Center. Photo Luciano Romano.

Frequently on tour in Europe, the company has performed in all major European opera houses: Rome, Bologna, Parma, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Leipzig, Cologne, Oslo, where the very first Bess Anne Brown attended the premiere evening and met the cast.

And Seville, as well as at the San Carlo in Naples, La Fenice in Venise, Dresden’s Semperoper and Munich’s Prinzregenten Theater

. Audiences in Milan and Catania applauded Sophisticated Ladies and its legendary conductor Mercer Ellington.

In 2003, the company spends four weeks on stage at Berlin’s Theater des Westens, and another four weeks at Amsterdam’s Theater Carré and three weeks at the Prinzregenten Theater in Munich. Their Porgy and Bess has graced the Dalhalla Festival in Sweden and Tokyo’s Bunkamura Orchard Theater in 2004, Bologna’s Teatro Comunale and the Edmonton Opera en 2005, Trieste, Hannover and Madrid in 2007, Parma, Munich, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, Baden-Baden and Zurich in 2008, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Las Palmas et Catania en 2009, Berlin, Leipzig and Mannheim in 2010 and Naples en 2012.

Sung in English with English and French surtitles