Porgy and Bess Reimagined: outstanding Gershwin at the Cumbria Opera Festival

United Kingdom Cumbria Opera Festival 2025 [3] – Gershwin, Porgy and Bess Reimagined: Venetia Iga (alto), Michael Muoneke (tenor), Kezia Abouma (piano), Nathan Dawkins (double bass), Noah Ojumu (drums), Joe Davies, Alistair Burton (arrangers). Kendal Town Hall, 27.8.2025. (CK)

Gershwin – Summertime; A Woman is a Sometime Thing; My Man’s Gone Now; I Got Plenty of Nuttin’; The Buzzard Song; Bess, You is my Woman Now; It Ain’t Necessarily So; What You Want Wid’ Bess?; I Loves You Porgy; Clara, Clara; There’s a Boat; Oh Lawd, I’m On My Way

A sold-out Kendal Town Hall confirmed that it was a fine idea to mark the hundredth anniversary of the publication of DuBose Heyward’s Porgy (though it would have been an equally fine idea to mount this concert without any such pretext). The plan was to chart the action of Porgy and Bess through a sequence of its songs. In practice, we were given only the barest bones of the story in the singers’ linking narrative, and a sanitised version at that: the opera does not sentimentalise the poverty and harshness of life on Catfish Row – two characters are murdered, others die in the hurricane, a widow cannot afford the burial fee for her dead husband – but we (mostly) skated over this. Not entirely: and it was a legitimate take on an opera bursting at the seams with fabulous songs.

Venetia Iga is the real deal, no question; she is already enjoying a glittering career as a versatile vocalist, appearing with such diverse outfits as The Sixteen and Florence and the Machine. She has a wonderful voice – burnished copper, full of tints and glints – and a magnetic stage presence. She is a sophisticated artist – her opening Summertime was more Cabaret than Catfish Row – but she gives herself to each song, lives in it. Her keening in Serena’s My Man’s Gone Now, rising to a powerful close, took us to the heart of the matter.

Michael Muoneke is studying Music at Aberdeen University and gaining experience as a promising performer in both opera and choral music: he is being mentored by VOCES8. On the night that I heard him (there was a second night in Carlisle) he took a little time to warm up – I Got Plenty of Nuttin’ seemed to lie awkwardly for his voice – but he soon came to the party: for me, his tender duet with Venetia, Bess, You Is my Woman Now, was the highlight and the heart of the whole performance. You could feel the temperature in the hall rising along with it.

There was room in the middle of each song for the trio of instrumentalists to strut their stuff, both together and in extended solos: Nathan Dawkins’s freewheeling bass was heard to advantage in Sporting Life’s It Ain’t Necessarily So, Kezia Abuoma’s skilful and sensitive pianism took centre stage over shuffling percussion in Bess’s I Loves you Porgy, and drummer Noah Ojumu cut loose in Sporting Life’s Bess-tempting There’s a Boat. All three of them are currently studying at London’s Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance; all three are bright prospects for a future in jazz.

Michael Muoneke’s It Ain’t Necessarily So – very well sung, and very funny – got the second half off to a splendid start, as the whooping and catcalling confirmed. Clara, Clara was done as an upbeat Spiritual (it is the community’s way of responding to a death among them); and, in keeping with the spirit of the concert, the concluding O Lawd, I’m On My Way was presented as a happy ending. It is uplifting in the opera, but it is also heartbreaking: we fear that Porgy will never find his Bess, that his quest will peter out somewhere, among strangers.

That’s too downbeat a way to end an account of a glittering concert enjoyed by a packed audience. Joe Davies set the tone at the start, a natural crowd-warming MC, even though he began ‘I’ve never walked on with a jazz band before.’ I don’t think it’ll be the last time, Joe.

Chris Kettle

Featured Image: Porgy and Bess Reimagined at the Cumbria Opera Festival 2025 © Joe Davies

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