Reviews

Porgy and Bess, Cork Opera House: Porgy and Bess took a long time to win favour as an opera. The work was not heard at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York until 1985, when it was nearly 50 years old. That, of course, is as much a reflection on the Met as on the opera itself.

The best numbers from Porgy and Bess are famous in a way denied all but a very few operatic arias. They are mostly heard in arrangements worlds away from their operatic origin, and the opera itself is mostly treated like a musical.

There's a loose parallel with Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, whose Mack the Knife is known to and hummed by large numbers of people who know nothing of the original opera. The independent lives of Summertime and Mack the Knife are so secure that they have an effect on how we perceive the works they come from. We don't quite expect to hear Weill sung by actors, as the composer intended, or Gershwin sung by opera stars.

The touring production of Porgy and Bess by Living Arts Inc - directed by Will Robertson and staged by Elizabeth Graham, with scenic design by James Fouchard and costumes by Candace Donnelly, in a visual style Gershwin would have recognised - has been on the road for over ten years now.

In vocal style it inclines more to Broadway than to the opera house, and the range of voices makes for a perplexing mix. Some were light enough to be hard to hear in the Cork Opera House over the small pit band under Zoltan Papp; others came and went like sounds in the wind, sometimes full, sometimes ethereal, for no apparent musical or dramatic reason.

Cedric Cannon's Porgy was one of the strongest presences, though he lost an amount of sympathy for singing so frequently off the note. LaRose Saxon's Bess was freer in spirit and more consistent of voice, though nothing as free as the colourfully camp Sportin' Life of Duane Moody, the man whose hold on Bess ultimately goes beyond all others. Mark Anthony Hall made a Crown burly of both presence and voice.

The production moved in a well-oiled way, telling the tale of the cripple and the scarlet lady with bursts of well co-ordinated physical energy from the inhabitants of Catfish Row, but also with pared-back tableaux where the music was left to carry everything.

Gershwin's music is full of aspirations that remain not quite fulfilled. It's also full of great, unforgettable tunes. Warts and all, this production has the benefit of leaving no one in doubt as to why those tunes make Porgy and Bess a work that audiences want to hear. In ten years, Living Arts Inc have taken it to audiences in over 400 cities on five continents. And they're not quite finished yet.

• Porgy and Bess is at the University Concert Hall, Limerick, tomorrow (061-331549) and The Helix, Dublin, from Wednesday to Saturday (01-700 7000).

Michael Dervan

Shania Twain, Nowlan Park, Kilkenny: Shania Twain's music comes in more flavours than bubblegum without ever being quite as complicated. Her made-to-order albums (available in Country, Latin and International versions) display the sure grasp of choice-addled American culture that only a Canadian could possess.

"Let's go girls," her voice rings out across an ocean of bobbing cowboy hats. Strutting on in a black jumpsuit studded with rhinestones, Shania looks so perfect that you suspect there's a really horrible portrait of her in an attic somewhere.

Unnaturally upbeat, the biggest-selling female artist in the world (ever) just can't seem to find an exclamation mark without basing a song around it. Man! I Feel Like a Woman!, Up! and I'm Gonna Get You Good! bombard the stadium with toothsome pop, sinking their bright hooks deep into the night.

Treacly country-lite ballads twang softly beneath looming rain clouds before the menacing cash-register loop of Ka-Ching! heralds Twain's scathing critique of capitalism.

The multi-millionaire continues with the whooping, contented, free-wheeling spirit of a painstakingly well-rehearsed professional.

Interrupting the razor-sharp show (her first in almost four years, amazingly) to invite a fan onstage or pose for photos with kiddies ("Do we have a Polaroid?" Twain asks innocently, while a minion scuttles onstage), it's telling that she fails to notice the genuine spontaneity of yet another Mexican wave rolling across the stands in her honour.

A shame, because for all the impressive eruptions of pyrotechnics, the choreographed models that serve as her backing orchestra, or her own spellbinding tresses, Shania should have the best view in the stadium.

Hollering along to That Don't Impress Me Much, practically line-dancing to Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? and swaying blissfully to You're Still the One, the crowd is a picture of satisfied and glorious harmony. If you're into that sort of thing.

Peter Crawley