World-class operatic performers will return to Jamaica under the auspices of National Chorale of Jamaica (NCOJ) for the staging of Porgy and Bess, featuring Jamaica’s own bass baritone Sir Willard White and his wife, acclaimed mezzo-soprano Lady Sylvia Kevorkian-White.

The presentation takes place on Wednesday, August 21, 2024 at the Courtleigh Auditorium in New Kingston, beginning at 7:00 pm.

The production, which will be under the direction of Conductor Winston Ewart, will also feature Yanique Leiba and Dr Richard Beckford as accompanists.

The pair previously graced the Jamaican stage in 2022, for the NCOJ’s Golden Gala Concert, where they enjoyed a rapturous reception, including a sustained standing ovation.

One of the most beloved American musicals, Porgy & Bess (first performed in 1935) tells the story of the poverty-stricken residents struggling to survive in the Charleston tenement of Catfish Row. The sultry Bess becomes the object of desire of Porgy a disabled man, who gets around in a cart.

It was adapted into a film in 1959, starring Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis Jr, and was also, in that same year, the inspiration for an acclaimed album by jazz great, Miles Davis.

Chairman of NCOJ Christopher Samuda shared: “Sir Willard, Lady Sylvia and the National Chorale of Jamaica will transport the dramatic and classic Afro-American opera from its birth in 1935 into the modernity of 2024 with rich and impressive voices that embody the work’s artistic integrity and lyrical beauty. This reminds us, with conviction, that embedded in the soul there is healing and restorative power in music. It will be a memorable vocal experience.”

Jamaica’s standard-bearer for international operatic excellence, Sir Willard has had an illustrious career which has taken him to the most prestigious opera houses and concert halls across the world.

He has collaborated with conductors, directors, and orchestras of the highest calibre and he has sung regularly at the Royal Opera House; Covent Garden; the Metropolitan Opera, New York; San Francisco Opera, and all the storied opera houses of Europe.

Sylvia Kevorkian White began studying singing at the famed Paris Conservatory, where she won a first prize unanimously and the first prize from the Union de Femmes Artistes Musiciennes in 1996.

Having made her debut in 2011 in Carmen in Tokyo, under the direction of Hikotaro Yazaki, she has since established herself among the pre-eminent mezzo-sopranos, with involvement in works as varied as Bizet’s Pearl Fishers at the Nîmes Opera, Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and as the protagonist in Antonio Caldara’s Madeleine at the Feet of Christ.

NCOJ was founded in 1972 with the aims of presenting programmes which include the widest variety of music which has found a place in the musical literature of the country over the years, and also promoting the development of young musicians, through their inclusion in concerts and by the provision of scholarships.