Top scorer

Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess springs to life fully formed, and pulls you in before a word has been sung. A whirlwind flourish; the hectic bustle of violins and xylophone, and then a quick fade into an image of a woman cradling a child and ‘Summertime’, the very first number we hear sung. The aria’s fame actually serves the drama. The thrill of musical recognition as the curtain rises on an unfamiliar world is replaced by astonishment at the dramatic instinct that allows Gershwin to expend a melody like that before his story has even started, in the certain knowledge that what follows can, and absolutely will, live up to what for any composer other than Gershwin would be a once-in-a-lifetime inspiration.

English National Opera’s new production is one of those occasions where everything goes right — or at least, it feels as though it does while you’re in there, which is very nearly the same thing. Director James Robinson has grasped two essentials: firstly, that with an opera which is still far from being a repertoire piece, it doesn’t pay to muck about with the setting and spirit. And secondly, that in a barn like the Coliseum, you’d better fill that stage and put on a show. Michael Yeargan’s huge revolving set sketches in the balconies and tin roofs of Catfish Row while leaving its population clearly on display. Under Robinson’s direction that community is vividly, affectionately observed.

But god, that score — can it ever have been realised better than this? The choral sound is what really slays you, woven into Gershwin’s orchestral fabric, but rearing up at climactic moments to a massed cry whose depth and weight of emotion makes the air quiver. Against the chorus, and often emerging from it, is a uniformly excellent cast.