The first thing we notice about this Porgy is that he’s not really a cripple. He’s got a bum leg and needs support, but he’s OK, if a bit limited, on his feet. Instead of a goat and a cart, he goes around on kind of tricycle he can push off. This is the first sign that the production seeks, in a much more subtle way than the Paulus/Parks rewrite, to tone down potentially objectionable character representations. Porgy’s only a smidgen disabled, a standup man from the get-go. Don’t be pitying him. A second sign is Bess’s entrance with Crown—a little attitude, a little flounce, but not much, no real reason for all those men to get hot and bothered, unless a red dress is enough to do it. Impossible to know whether this is director or performer or both, but in any case, don’t be calling her a prostitute.

The Met’s policy of allowing only a single intermission unless it can get away with none is very costly here. Sledging us all the way through Kittiwah (Act 1, Scene 2), approximately 1’44”, is punishing to both work and audience, and one reason “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin'” seems unprepared is that there has been no intermission after Act 1. “It Take a Long Pull to Get There” opens Act 2. It’s a rhythm-of-life work song; it could occur anytime, following on anything. But the last we saw Porgy was when he reached his hand out to Bess to offer her shelter, and here he is five minutes later singing about having his gal, his Lawd, and his song.  We need the illusion of time passing, a break away from the narrative, to process that they’ve become a couple. It’s also good to have some respite after one of the show’s emotional peaks—the emotional peak, as it turned out. The Gershwins had their Beginning, Middle, and End correctly divided, even if Middle got away from them by ten or fifteen minutes.

Before considering the central moment of the central relationship, I should give some description of the two performers. In some eight or nine encounters with Eric Owens, I haven’t found him an expressive or imaginative singer or actor—rather anonymous, in fact. But his voice, hanging somewhere between baritone and bass, has had a reliable solidity and some warmth of timbre. I was dismayed by its condition on this occasion. He had some nice moments when singing softly, but nearly every sustained tone was lacking in firmness, and he seemed to be trying a new, more tenory way of approaching the top that was not working for him. I had heard and read that despite the vocal patchiness, he was radiating a sense of humanity that went a long way toward compensating for it. That’s a different humanity wavelength from mine. I felt the same presence I’ve felt from him before—not insincere or unpleasant, but stolid. The spark I’d hoped the role might ignite in him was never struck, though he trouped on through. This was my first experience with Angel Blue. She has a lyric soprano voice of good quality, secure, ample-sounding toward the top but less filled-in lower down. She met the basic demands of the writing without ever illuminating it from within or bringing a passionate throb to it.