Critiques de productions passés
3Ceiling fans spin as Nadine Benjamin’s Clara sings Summertime to her baby – it’s the first singing we hear, and Benjamin delivers it gorgeously. You can almost hear the heat – and indeed, it is George Gershwin’s score, buoyantly played here under the specialist guidance of conductor John Wilson, that more than anything establishes the atmosphere of summer in the American south. Gershwin researched it enthusiastically: the prospect of working with Dorothy and DuBose Heyward and turning their play into an opera brought him to their hometown of Charleston, visiting churches and absorbing the music of the Gullah Geechee community first-hand. It’s no coincidence that there’s a slight stylistic shift whenever we hear from Sportin’ Life, the slippery, perma-smiling drug pusher who always has an eye on New York – his big numbers, including It Ain’t Necessarily So, have his voice shadowed by a quietly sleazy muted trumpet.
Nadine Benjamin, una soprano de carrera tardía y por ello mismo reconocida hoy en el Reino Unido como una artista capaz de llegar sin prejuicios de edad, cantó un excelente Summertime al comienzo y durante toda la velada protagonizó una Clara de fulminante autenticidad y carácter hasta el momento de su sacrificio final, cuando abandona a su hijo para buscar a su marido y ahogarse con él en medio de una tormenta. También merece una mención especial un My man is gone que Latonia Moore (Serena), cantó no como una queja individual sino como lo que debe ser, un lamento de trascendencia colectiva, en la línea del Requiem de Brahms.
