When the curtain of New York's Metropolitan Opera House rose for the closing matinee of Porgy and Bess in January, the boos that typically accompany the entrance of the show's villains were a mere murmur. The nearly 4,000 people who packed the space to capacity'175 of them standing-room ticket holders who remained on their feet for the opera's three-and-a-half-hour run time'had come to cheer. Thirty-one years before, Denyce Graves had made her Met debut in the title role of Georges Bizet's Carmen. The mezzo-soprano had been a revelation, her full, rich voice and lusty physicality defining the role for a generation. Graves was a diva in the original, operatic sense: a world-renowned performer who made journalists wilt, and whose name alone was enough to draw crowds. But here she was, playing a supporting character in Porgy and Bess. Graves was singing the part of Maria, the matriarch of the 1920s working-class Black community of Catfish Row, the Lowcountry settlement where the show...
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