The touring production of Porgy and Bess that opened Wednesday night at Bass Performance Hall certainly reminds us of the greatness of the work. Between stage director Charles Randolph-Wright and conductor Samuel Bill, the opening-night performance really crackled and sported turbocharged voices.
– Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News
Here's a can't-miss story line: Dope fiends solve personal problems by killing people. Here's another one: Love transforms people, and frees them. One could argue that both are supported by the Gershwin brothers' 1935 operatic masterpiece "Porgy and Bess," performed this weekend at Johnson County Community College ... Leonard Rowe's Porgy and Tomas Elliott's Crown were properly operatic ... soprano Reyna Carguill as Serena commanded the stage most successfully. Serena has none of the best songs in the show, but Carguill sang what she had with unmistakable power, authority and passion.
– John Heuertz, Kansas City Star
Director Charles Randolph-Wright staged everything with so much care that each person onstage had personality and spirit. As a result, this "Porgy" amounted to more than the sum of its parts.
– Steven Brown, Charlotte Observer
[Phillip Boykin's] major scenes – with Bess at the picnic and during the hurricane – are the evening's highlights. Singing and acting with a roaring, dangerous vigor, Boykin fills the vast reaches of the Bushnell. Supported by a superb orchestra conducted by Pacien Mazzagatti, the score comes across with all the rich colors its creators hoped for.
– David A. Rosenberg, Stamford Times
Happily, the current touring production of George and Ira Gershwin's operatic masterpiece – which opened last night at the Southern Theatre – boasts a cast remarkable in both depth and uniformity. It's difficult to find a weak link in this group, which brings this tragic story and immortal score to vivid life. The production was specially created to honor the opera's 75th anniversary and is presented by the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts.
Patrick Blackwell as the noble, disabled Porgy and Kishna Davis as the beautiful but weak-willed Bess create wholly believable, sympathetic characters. You want them to get together, you want their story to end happily – all the while knowing, of course, that it won't.
– Barbara Zuck, Columbus Dispatch
Broadway came to the Niswonger Performing Arts Center of Northwest Ohio in the form of the musical Annie and was a rousing success. However, that was nothing to the roars of approval opera received Thursday night when the 75th anniversary tour of Porgy & Bess premiered at the NPAC. The opera, which chronicles the lives of the inhabitants of Catfish Row, a fictitious waterside slum area of Charleston, S.C., and the up-and-down love story between Porgy, a crippled beggar, and "fallen woman" Bess, was magnificently produced by Michael Capasso and directed by Charles Randolph-Wright.
If Thursday's premiere of the opera is any indication, the show should be a success as it continues its multi-city tour in the United States with performances in Columbus this weekend.
– Dave Mosier, Van Wert Independent