great expectations

…lights flicker in the lobby…people scurry to their seats…lights dim then go dark at the exact second that the orchestra strikes its first note…the smile on my face is about to burst through my pounding heart…I have waited for this moment, anticipated it from the first time I saw the movie with Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr., and Pearl Bailey and every time I listened to the soundtrack with Leontyne Price’s incredible voice delivering a personal front row broadcast from my turntable, tape or CD player. I know the score, want to belt out summertime and the livin’ is easy…as the opera Porgy and Bess begins I can barely contain myself! At intermission, I rose from my center of the aisle orchestra seat, absorbed the surroundings, had intermezzo chats with other enthusiasts, settled down in wait for Oh Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess my absolute favorite. Each time I have heard it I am overwhelmed by his passionate anguish over the thought of losing the woman he loves but have never been able to discern the libretto of the two females singing with Porgy. Though the opera is in English, I glanced at the subtitles to now understand the concern for and attempt to comfort a friend in despair wrapping their voices around his pain as the three reach crescendo with Bess as the last note.

Each time this show has been performed on stage I have been unable to see it for some reason or the other; it has been ions since I happened on the movie which seems to have vanished from circulation. However, I have played the music in every form available for many years, know it sans the recitative like the back of my hands that shoot craps on the dock of Catfish Row, place money in the saucer to bury Serena's husband, thrust towards heaven ‘cause I can’t sit down at the picnic on Kittiwah Island, clutch the orphaned child of Jake and Clara after they drown in the storm, protect the face of the strumpet Bess from Crown’s brut, snatch that happy dust from Sportin’ Life and bring Porgy his crutch so he can go on his way.

But as the house lights came up to subsiding applause and the shuffling of feet leaving the hall, I asked myself if the dramatic work I had taken in for the past two and one half hours should have remained as one of my unfulfilled desires. It seems that after almost a lifetime of visualizing the performance as I listened to its accompaniment, no cast no matter how great could have held a candle to what I had imagined in my head.

There is something to be said for keeping some things at the bar not above, our expectations reasonable not farfetched, what we imagine as images, dreams and fantasies that never play out right before our very eyes. And to think, I was just about to have a friend translate the lyrics of a ballad that makes me swoon. The music and emotion in the voice of the songstress carry me to places I wouldn't find if I knew what the words meant so on second thought, I'm going to pass... can you? I say take it case by case. Only you will be able to determine whether or not you should…

keep your peepers open! ®