Porgy and Bess at the Royal Festival Hall

To London's Royal Festival Hall last night for Cape Town Opera's Porgy and Bess, conceived by its composer, George Gershwin, as an “American folk opera.”

This semi-staged concert performance was stunning. While all the leads were good, it was Xolela Sixaba, as Porgy, who clearly captivated the audience. His voice was deep, rich and rounded, and he had enormous physical presence. Despite lacking the dramatic performances of fully staged operas, the cast were convincing enough for at least this member of the audience to care what became of their characters.

Bess, Kearstin Piper Brown, hit her high notes with apparent ease, and sashayed around the stage like the good time girl that she was. As for poor, doomed, Clara – played here by Pretty Yende – her “Summertime” echoed around the hall long after the baby son she'd been trying to sooth to sleep had been orphaned.

This is one of the most sensuous of operas, and well served by Cape Town Opera's chorus. Their background humming, although that seems too lowly a word to describe it, was mournful enough to send shivers up the spine.

What really stood out? So, so much. Porgy's sheer joy during “I got plenty of nuttin' “, with its lovely twangy banjo accompaniment. The chorus grooving as they backed Sportin' Life in “It ain't necessarily so”. The almost tangible sense of panic from the cast as the storm picked up and fear grew for Jake and his crew.

Just a couple of quibbles – particularly at the beginning, it was very difficult to make out the words being sung (a case of poor enunciation rather than any lack of volume). This performance was captioned for the hard of hearding, which at least meant that the audience had a reasonably good idea of what was going on – but of course, to a certain degree, it detracted from what was happening onstage.

And to the endlessly fidgeting “gentleman” in the seat in front of mine – you really are old enough to know how to sit still for more than five minutes. Like me, you are short, and like me, you need to accept that you won't always be able to see everything going on. Better to learn to live with it than to keep up the demented meekat act and risk a sharp jab in the back of the neck with a biro. You would have ruined a lesser performance.