I’ve seen three operas in my life–all this season at the Harrison.

Baritone Timothy Robert Blevins as Crown, baritone Lawrence Craig as Sportin' Life, soprano Kearstin Piper Brown as Bess, baritone Eric McKeever as Robbins and tenor Carlos Clanton as Nelson/Crab Man.

I enjoyed each one, but Porgy and Bess made the most profound impression. Creative and compelling in everything from lighting and set design to the acting, from the depiction of a hurricane in Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, to the wiggle and swagger of Sportin’ Life, the unprincipled drug dealer and gambler who is the catalyst for Bess’s tragic end, Porgy and Bess concluded the season on a high note.

Frankly, Porgy and Bess was the perfect choice for any diverse American city like Norfolk. The black and white community filled the elegant building and rose together at the end in a standing ovation that rocked the house. The Gershwins’ opera, first performed on Broadway in 1934, is an American classic based on a story by DuBose Heyward. Originally, it was commissioned to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but the Met wasn’t able to open its mind to the idea of an all-black cast.

Some critics see Porgy and Bess as an example of run-of-the-mill racism, portraying “the image of black people that white people want to see.” But that’s not the way I see it or how the crowd at the Harrison responded to it. The Norfolk audience saw it as a tragic love story, a tale of the hard times many poor blacks faced (and still face) in this country. It’s a story entangled in poverty, violence, and drugs. Not many in the South Carolina fishing village come to a good end. If the sea doesn’t get them, “happy dust” will. There’s a lot of gambling that goes on in Catfish Row, but ultimately the cards are stacked against Porgy and Bess. In this respect, Porgy and Bess stands in opposition to the American dream of success and happiness for every poor boy and girl. Instead, it suggests a tragic recognition of bad luck and human weakness. And even though Porgy heads out at the end of the story in search of the lost Bess, the odds are against him.

Baritone Greg Gardner as Jim, tenor Carlos Clanton as Nelson/Crab Man, baritone Timothy Robert Blevins as Crown, tenor Andri M. Gowens as Peter (the Honeyman), baritone Michael Redding as Porgy, baritone Kevin Moreno as Jake, baritone Charles Jason Freeman as Mingo and principal male singer/dancer Darius Crenshaw..

Sounds depressing. But, like all art, even the darkest stories offer light, and Porgy and Bess does that brilliantly. The few dozen cast members were to a man and woman (and child) magnificent. The baritone Michael Redding, who traveled through Europe touring with the Harlem Production of Porgy and Bess, transformed himself on stage into the crippled, compassionate lover of Bess. Kearstin Piper Brown made her Virginia Opera debut as female lead, and she inhabited Bess in a way that was both sympathetic and sad. Timothy Robert Blevins as the violent and crass stevedore Crown and Lawrence Craig as the unscrupulous Sportin’ Life were also mesmerizing. There are too many other cast members to mention them all, but suffice it to say that they brought Catfish Row to rollicking, passionate life at the Harrison in songs we’ve grown to love over the years–“I Got Plenty of Nuttin,” “Summertime,”  or “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”

What is necessarily so is the fact that the Virginia Opera at the Harrison Theater is a unique night of entertainment. If you can still get tickets to Porgy and Bess, you’d be foolish to pass up the opportunity. And if it’s too late to get tickets when you read this, then next season, the 36^th for the Virginia Opera, will offer Verdi’s Rigoletto, Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Wagner’s The Valkyrie, and Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. I’ll see you there. I’ll be the guy NOT in a tuxedo.

Michael Pearson teaches creative writing at Old Dominion University. Porgy and Bess runs in Norfolk through 4/18. Go here for more information.