7. Cycles. There are three cycles of mourning and regeneration shown in the opera. The first is for Robbins and Serena, the second for Jake and Clara, and the third for Bess and Porgy, with the first name in each case being that of the lost person and the second that of the person to be comforted. Serena’s is the only one that is completed—she has her great dirge, her extended expressions of empathy from the chorus, and the up-tempo communal uplift of getting on board to the Promised Land. We see that she resumes her life in the community, with her place as communal conscience secure. Clara gets her comforting, her sense of being folded back into the female side of the community, with the beautiful “Clara, Clara, don’t you be downhearted.” There’s no time left in the show for pepping her up or re-integrating her into daily life—only for Sportin’ Life with his Mephistophelean mockery—but we feel she’ll be taken care of and, in time, revive. For the third cycle, see below.

8. “Production,” direction, and performance: In the current vernacular of opera commentary, “production” means all the design elements (sets, makeup and costumes, lighting), plus an overall view of the staging. The aspects of direction that influence the behaviors and relationships of the characters are usually passed over, or sometimes given the lovely tag “Personenregie.” That’s because it isn’t always easy to know what a performer brings to the table as opposed to what he or she has been told to do; and because Personenregie is inseparable from the staging; and because few opera commentators watch with what Jed Harris called “a professional eye.” And I don’t want to devote much attention here to “production,” because except for one element it is not finally determinant in how I feel about the Met’s Porgy. The one element is the dancing—not the “natural” dancing that the residents of Catfish Row might break into, but that of the professionals (uncredited, by the way, and they work hard) who have been brought in to jump out in front of all the uptempo numbers (Camille A. Brown, choreographer) to showily illustrate in extravagant but abstract gesture what the song’s about, thereby taking it right away from the character(s) singing it and blurring it hopelessly. This was a disastrous decision (and of all the things Porgy doesn’t need, more revving up would be No. 1), and a major impediment to receiving several high points of the work. Beyond that, although there are things I would prefer another way in the physical presentation (I think the fixed closed-in courtyard of the “traditional” set, with its one big, opening-out change for Kittiwah, conditions the drama better than the see-through moveable construction [Michael Yeargan, des.] offers here), they wouldn’t prevent a compelling performance from happening. This huge show has been wrestled onto the stage with admirable skill and attention (James Robinson, dir.), and plays with assurance and energy. It is performance itself—the singingacting—and the Personenregie aspects of the staging, that are of paramount concern.