OPERA
MONDAY & SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 & OCTOBER 5, 2019 (continuing through OCTOBER 16 and then again from JANUARY 8 through FEBRUARY 1, 2020)
7:30 PM MONDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan

$53-$495
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/porgy-and-bess/

I'll admit to a good deal of ambivalence about Porgy and Bess. For one thing, much as I worship George Gershwin as a songwriter, when he moves out of pop forms — either in his orchestral music or in this stab at opera (OK, his solo piano pieces are marvelous) — his work becomes soggy. And then there's the issue of cultural appropriation haunting this opera like a specter. That said, who'd want to miss this Metropolitan Opera production of a major American work (no matter what reservations you might have about it) by a major American composer with a dream cast and an excellent conductor?

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: P.J. Clarke's is your best bet, both from the Americana standpoint and the should-still-be-open-after-curtain standpoint.