Amplification to Be Set Later

To mike or not to mike--that is the question. Producers of the Houston Grand Opera’s touring “Porgy and Bess” are letting each local presenter decide whether to amplify singers’ voices.

In San Diego in March, the decision was to amplify; in Los Angeles, where the show opened last night, the vote was nay. “Porgy” opens June 21 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, where “the decision won’t be made until the show sets up here and does a sound check,” a center spokesman said Thursday.

“If it is amplified,” the spokesman said, “it will be minimal.” The center will, in any case, employ the supertitles that have been used at other tour stops, including Los Angeles, even though the work is sung in English.