Bergen International Festival 2015 English catalogue | Page 8

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F E ST IV IT IE S

FEST I VI T I ES

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Porgy & Bess

DAT E / T IME

Wednesday 27 May
at 18:45
Thursday 28 May
at 19:00
DU RAT ION

1:15
OT H E R

Introduction by
Henrik Engelbrecht
in the Grieghallen
foyer (in Danish)
Wednesday 27 May
at 18:00
Thursday 28 May
at 18:15
T IC K E T *

Full price: 200–700
Under 30: 150
*Festival card:
40 %–30 % discount

Classic love story with a star cast and
full orchestra opens the Festival.
The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra’s music
director Andrew Litton has recreated the
manifold styles and emotions found in George
Gershwin’s opera from 1935 in this suite.
‘I arranged my Suite from Porgy & Bess because
there was no other suite of music from the opera
that preserved George Gershwin’s music as
he wrote it. It is very easy to turn the opera
into a Broadway show, because of all the hit
tunes, and all the other arrangements do just
that. However, Porgy and Bess is very much
an opera and I wanted to be able to perform
it in a concert hall where the integrity of the
opera was maintained. Therefore, in my suite,
one doesn’t just get the hit songs, but one also
gets the entire scene around the hits, so one
has much more of a sense of their place in the
opera’, says the conductor.

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Litton conductor
Gordon Hawkins Porgy
Karen Slack Serena
Janice Chandler-Eteme Bess
Howard Haskin Sportin’ life
Bergen Philharmonic Choir
Edvard Grieg Kor
Bergen Private Gymnas, Musikklinjen
Håkon Matti Skrede chorus master
GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898–1937)

Porgy & Bess

Supported by Rika AS, represented
by Yvonne and Bjarne Rieber
Sponsored by DNB and DNV GL

In Litton’s distillate of Porgy & Bess you will
hear the famous hits Summertime, I Got Plenty
o’Nuttin and It Ain’t Necessarily So, performed
by an all-American star soloist cast, handpicked
by Litton himself. Together with the Bergen
Philharmonic Orchestra, which celebrates its
250th year in 2015, and a large choir, they will
create an opening performan