APS educators raise their voices in chorus for Atlanta Opera production of ‘Porgy and Bess’

Photo by Tim Wilkerson/Atlanta Opera

We couldn’t be prouder of Miles and Adamsville elementary chorus teacher Letricia Henson and Douglass High choral director Ben Polite, who currently are performing in the chorus for the Atlanta Opera‘s sold-out run of “Porgy and Bess” this week at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. It should be noted that the opera chorus already has received rave reviews, and we’d like to think Henson and Polite are two big-voice reasons why.

And this isn’t Henson’s first rodeo with George and Ira Gerswhin‘s iconic opera, which tells the story of African Americans in Depression Era Charleston, S.C. She sang in the opera chorus for the Atlanta Opera’s first mounting of “Porgy and Bess” back in 2005, and the following year performed the opera in Paris with the same group. (It marked the first time an American opera chorus of this kind was ever invited to perform in a European music hall, Henson notes.)