Porgy and Bess

Cape Town Opera performs an exuberantly colourful, fully-staged production of George Gershwin's 1930s 'folk opera' about the African-American experience. A jazzy fusion of classical opera and Broadway musical, 'Porgy and Bess' boasts several classics in the song repertoire, including 'Summertime' and 'It Ain't Necessarily So'. Originally set among the teeming black community of Catfish Row, a run-down tenement in 1920s South Carolina, the opera tells of the crippled beggar Porgy's desperate attempts to rescue the beautiful Bess from her twin dependency – on her violent lover Crown and the sleazy dope-dealer Sportin' Life. Here, the action is shifted to apartheid-era Soweto. Directed by Christine Horne; Albert Horne conducts the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. (Presented by Askonas Holt and Raymond Gubbay.)