- Porgy and Bess
[
thumb|250px|The_cast_of_Boston try-out prior to the Broadway opening.]"Porgy and Bess" is an
opera , first performed in1935 , with music byGeorge Gershwin ,libretto byDuBose Heyward , and lyrics byIra Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel "Porgy " and the play of the same name that he co-wrote with his wifeDorothy Heyward . All three works deal withAfrican American life in the fictitious "Catfish Row" (based on the real-lifeCabbage Row ) inCharleston, South Carolina , in the early 1920s.Originally conceived by Gershwin as an "American folk opera," Porgy and Bess premiered in New York in the fall of 1935 and featured an entire cast of classically trained African-American singers—a daring and visionary artistic choice at the time. Incorporating a wealth of blues and jazz idioms into the classical art form of opera, Gershwin considered it his finest work, but it was not widely accepted in the
United States as a legitimate opera until 1976 when the Houston Grand Opera production of his complete score (followed nine years later by its Metropolitan Opera premiere) established it as an artistic triumph. The work is now considered part of the standard operatic repertoire and is regularly performed internationally. Despite this success, the opera has been controversial; some, from the outset, have considered itracist ."Summertime" is by far the best-known piece from the work, and countless interpretations of this and other individual numbers have also been recorded and performed. The opera is admired for Gershwin's innovative synthesis of European orchestral techniques with American
jazz andfolk music idioms."Porgy and Bess" tells the story of Porgy, a crippled black man living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina, and his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her pimp, and Sportin' Life, the drug dealer.The "Porgy and Bess" original cast recording was included by the
National Recording Preservation Board in theLibrary of Congress , National Recording Registry in 2003. [ [http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/nrpb-2003reg.html 2003 National Recording Registry choices] ] The board selects songs on an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."Roles
With the exception of the small speaking roles, all of the characters are black.
ynopsis
:Place: Catfish Row, a fictitious black tenement (once, a mansion of the aristocracy) on the waterfront of Charleston, South Carolina.:Time: The 'recent past' (c.1930)
Act 1
"Scene 1: Catfish Row, a summer evening"
The opera begins with a short introduction which segues into an evening in Catfish Row. Jasbo Brown entertains the community with his piano playing. Clara sings a lullaby to her baby ("Summertime") as the working men prepare for a game of
craps . Clara's husband, Jake, tries his own lullaby ("A Woman is a Sometime Thing") with little effect. Porgy, a cripple and a beggar, enters on his goat cart to organize the game. Crown, a lowlife, and his woman Bess enter, and the game begins. Sportin' Life, the local supplier of "happy dust" (cocaine ) and bootleg alcohol, also joins in. One by one, the players get crapped out, leaving only Robbins and Crown, who have become extremely drunk. When Robbins wins, Crown starts a fight, and eventually kills Robbins. Crown runs, telling Bess to fend for herself. The door is shut on her by most of the residents, except Porgy, who shelters her."Scene 2: Serena's Room, the following night"
The mourners sing a spiritual to Robbins ("Gone, Gone, Gone"). To raise money for his burial, a saucer is placed on his chest for the mourners' donations ("Overflow"). A white detective enters, in a speaking voice telling Serena (Robbins' wife) that she must bury her husband soon, or his body will be given to medical students. He arrests Peter (a bystander), whom he will force to testify against Crown. Serena laments her loss in "
My Man's Gone Now ." The undertaker enters, and agrees to bury Robbins as long as Serena promises to pay him back. Bess and the chorus finish the act with "Leavin' for the Promise' Lan'".Act 2
"Scene 1: Catfish Row, a month later, in the morning"
Jake and the other fishermen prepare for work ("It take a long pull to get there"). Clara asks Jake not to go, and to come to a picnic, but he tells her that they desperately need the money. This causes Porgy to sing from his window about his outlook on life ("I got plenty o' nuttin'"). Sportin' Life waltzes around, selling cocaine, but soon incurs the wrath of Maria ("I hates yo' struttin' style"). A fraudulent lawyer, Frazier, arrives and farcically divorces Bess from Crown. Archdale, a white lawman, enters and informs Porgy that Peter will soon be released. The bad omen of a buzzard flies over Catfish Row, causing Porgy to sing "Buzzard keep on flyin' over".
As the rest of Catfish Row prepares for the picnic, Sportin' Life asks Bess to start a new life with him in New York; she refuses. Bess and Porgy are now left alone, and express their love for each other ("Bess, you is my woman now"). The chorus re-enters in high spirits as they prepare to leave for the picnic ("Oh, I can't sit down"). Bess leaves Porgy behind as they go off to the picnic. Porgy reprises "I got plenty o' nuttin'" in high spirits.
"Scene 2: Kittiwah Island, that evening"
The chorus enjoys themselves at the picnic ("I ain't got no shame doin' what I like to do!"). Sportin' Life presents the chorus his cynical views on the Bible ("It ain't necessarily so"), causing Serena to chastise them ("Shame on all you sinners!"). Crown enters to talk to Bess, and he reminds her that Porgy is "temporary." Bess wants to leave Crown forever ("Oh, what you want wid Bess?") but Crown makes her follow him into hiding in the woods.
"Scene 3: Catfish Row, a week later, just before dawn"
Jake leaves to go fishing with his crew, and Peter returns from prison. Bess is lying in Porgy's room, delirious. Serena prays to remove Bess's affliction ("Oh, doctor Jesus"). The Strawberry Woman and the Crab Man sing their calls on the street, and Bess soon recovers from her fever. Bess talks with Porgy about her sins ("I wants to stay here") before exclaiming "I loves you, Porgy." Porgy promises to protect her from Crown. The scene ends with the hurricane bell signaling an approaching storm.
"Scene 4: Serena's Room, dawn of the next day"
The residents of Catfish Row drown out the sound of the storm with prayer. A knock is heard at the door, and the chorus believes it to be Death ("Oh there's somebody knocking at the door"). Crown enters dramatically, seeking Bess. The chorus tries praying to make Crown leave, causing him to goad them with the un-Christian "A red-headed woman make a choo-choo jump its track." Clara sees Jake's boat turn over in the river, and she runs out to try and save him. Crown says that Porgy is not a real man, as he cannot go out to rescue her from the storm. Crown goes himself, and the chorus finish their prayer. Clara dies in the storm, and Bess will now care for her baby.
Act 3
"Scene 1: Catfish Row, the next night"
The chorus mourns Clara and Jake ("Clara, Clara, don't you be downhearted"). Crown enters to claim Bess, and a fight ensues, which ends with Porgy killing Crown. Porgy exclaims to Bess, "You've got a man now. You've got Porgy!"
"Scene 2: Catfish Row, the next afternoon"
A detective enters and talks with Serena and Maria about the murders of Crown and Robbins. They deny knowledge of Crown's murder, causing the detective to question an apprehensive Porgy. He asks Porgy to come and identify Crown's body. Sportin' Life tells Porgy that corpses bleed in the presence of their murderers, and the detective will use this to hang Porgy. Porgy refuses to identify the body, and is arrested for contempt of court. Sportin' Life forces Bess to take cocaine, and then tells her that Porgy will be locked up for a long time. He tells her that she should start a new life with him in New York with the dazzling "There's a boat dat's leavin' soon for New York". She shuts the door on his face, but he knows that doubt at Porgy's return will make her follow him.
"Scene 3 - Catfish Row, a week later"
Porgy is released from jail and returns to Catfish Row richer, after playing craps with his cellmates with his "lucky bones", as he calls his dice. He gives gifts to the residents, and does not understand why they all seem so downhearted. He sees Clara's baby is now with Serena and madly asks where Bess is. Maria and Serena tell him that Bess has run off with Sportin' Life to New York. All three sing the trio "O Bess, oh where's my Bess" . Porgy calls for his goat cart, and leaves for New York to find Bess in the closing song "Oh Lawd, I'm on my way".
Compositional history
In 1926 George Gershwin read Porgy by DuBose Heyward, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and immediately wrote to the author suggesting that they collaborate on a folk opera based on the novel. Heyward was enthusiastic, but it was 1934 before Gershwin's composing and performing schedules permitted him to begin actual work on the project. Meanwhile, Heyward and his wife Dorothy dramatized Porgy for a 1927 production which incorporated spirituals into the action. This Theater Guild presentation of Porgy ran for 367 performances and elicited interest from others, among them Al Jolson, in using it as a basis for some sort of musical production. However, nothing came of these ideas and in 1934, after years of correspondence, George and Ira Gershwin joined DuBose Heyward in Charleston to write the opera which had been germinating in George's imagination for several years. [cite web
url=http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/gershwin/porgy&bess.php|title=The Internet's Premier Classical Music Source. Porgy and Bess (1934)|accessdate=2008-07-30|author=Jane Erb|date=1994, 1996]Productions
Original Broadway cast
Gershwin's first version of the opera, running four hours (counting the two intermissions), was performed privately in a concert version in
Carnegie Hall , in the fall of 1935. The world premiere performance took place at theColonial Theatre inBoston onSeptember 30 ,1935 - the try-out for a work intended initially for Broadway where the opening took place at theAlvin Theater inNew York City onOctober 10 ,1935 . [Jablonski & Stewart, 227–229] During rehearsals and in Boston, Gershwin made many cuts and refinements to shorten the running time and tighten the dramatic action. The run on Broadway lasted 124 performances.Rouben Mamoulian produced and directed andAlexander Smallens conducted.After the Broadway run, a tour started on
January 27 ,1936 in Philadelphia and travelled to Pittsburgh andChicago before ending inWashington, D.C. onMarch 21 ,1936 . During the Washington run, the cast—as led by Todd Duncan—protested segregation among the audience. Eventually management gave in to the demands, resulting in the first integrated performance of any show at National Theatre. [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/sep02.html Porgy and Bess] , the Library of Congress American Memory project, Today in History,September 2 .]Around 1938, the original cast reunited for a West Coast revival; the exception being that
Avon Long took on the role of Sportin' Life. Long continued to reprise his role in several of the following productions.On
July 14 ,1993 , the U.S. Post Office issued a Porgy and Bess 29 cent postage stamp for the Gershwin's African-American folk opera.Crawford's Broadway revival
The noted director and producer
Cheryl Crawford brought "Porgy and Bess" back to Broadway in 1942 with an even more drastically cut version of the opera than the first Broadway staging, re-fashioning it in the style ofmusical theater that Americans were used to hearing from Gershwin. The orchestra was reduced, the cast was halved, and manyrecitatives were reduced to spoken dialog. [Standifer, James. "The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess." "Humanities" November/December 1997. (Also accessible on [http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1997-11/porgy.html NEH website] )]After trying out her concepts at a professional stock theater in
Maplewood, New Jersey in September 1941, the show opened at theMajestic Theater on Broadway in January 1942. ["Victor Book of the Opera". New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968. pp. 326–328.] Duncan and Brown reprised their roles as the title characters, with Alexander Smallens again conducting.Etta Moten replaced Brown as Bess in June. This production was far more successful financially than the original.European premieres
On
March 27 ,1943 , the opera had its European premiere at the Royal Opera House inCopenhagen . This performance is also notable for the fact that it was put on by an all-white cast under the nose of the Nazi occupiers, who put an end to its run after 22 sold-out performances.Other all-white or mostly-white productions in Europe took place in
Zurich in 1945 and 1950, andCopenhagen in 1946.1952 production
Blevins Davis and Robert Breen produced a revival in 1952 which restored much of the music cut in the Crawford version, including many of the
recitatives , and divided the opera into two acts, with the intermission occurring after Crown forces Bess to stay on Kittiwah Island. This version restored the work to a more operatic form, though not all of the recitatives were retained, and "Porgy and Bess" was warmly received through Europe. TheLondon premiere took place onOctober 9 ,1952 at theStoll Theatre , where it remained untilFebruary 10 ,1953 . [Martin, George. "The Opera Companion to Twentieth Century Opera". New York: Dodd, Meade & Company, 1979. pp. 389–396]Notable also was this production's original cast, with
Leontyne Price as Bess,William Warfield as Porgy, andCab Calloway as Sportin' Life, a role that was conceived with him in mind. The small role of Ruby was played by a youngMaya Angelou . Price and Warfield met and wed while on the tour.After a small tour of Europe financed by the
United States Department of State , the production came to Broadway'sZiegfeld Theatre . It went on the road again in the fall of 1954 to Latin America, the Middle East and Europe, though Price and Warfield had since left the production. This tour saw "Porgy and Bess" premiere atLa Scala inMilan , in February 1955. A historic yet tense premiere took place inMoscow in December 1955, the first time an American theater group had been to theSoviet capital since the Bolshevik Revolution. AuthorTruman Capote travelled with the cast and crew, writing an account of this event in his book "The Muses Are Heard: An Account".Houston Grand Opera's 1976 production
During the 1960s and early 1970s, "Porgy and Bess" mostly languished on the shelves, a victim of its perceived condescending racism in a racially-charged time. Though new productions took place in 1961 and 1964 along with a
Vienna Volksoper premiere in 1965, these did little to change most Americans' opinions of the work.The
Houston Grand Opera production which opened onSeptember 25 ,1976 helped to turn the tide. For the first time, an American opera company had tackled the opera, not a Broadway production company. This production was based on Gershwin's original full score and did not incorporate the cuts and other changes that Gershwin himself had made before the New York premiere, but it allowed the public to take in the operatic whole as first envisioned by the composer. In this light, it became clear that "Porgy and Bess" was indeed an opera, not a serious piece of musical theatre.Donnie Ray Albert ,Clamma Dale andLarry Marshall starred, respectively as Porgy, Bess and Sportin' Life. This production won the Houston Grand Opera aTony Award —the only opera ever to receive one—and aGrammy Award .ubsequent productions
Another Broadway production was staged in 1983. [http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=4861] After toying with the idea of staging the opera since the 1930s, the
Metropolitan Opera finally did so for the first time in 1985, opening onFebruary 6 , with a starry cast includingSimon Estes ,Grace Bumbry ,Bruce Hubbard ,Gregg Baker andFlorence Quivar . [http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/] England'sGlyndebourne Festival tackled the work in an acclaimed 1986 production directed byTrevor Nunn , which was scenically expanded and videotaped for television in 1993 (see below in "Film and television"). These productions were also based on the "complete score," without incorporating Gershwin's revisions. A semi-staged version of this production was performed atthe Proms in 1998. The centennial celebration of the Gershwin brothers from 1996–1998 included a new production as well. On February 24–25, 2006, theNashville Symphony Orchestra , under the direction ofJohn Mauceri , gave a concert performance at theTennessee Performing Arts Center that incorporated the cuts made by Gershwin himself for the New York premiere, thus giving the audience an idea of what the opera sounded like on its Broadway opening. In 2000 and 2002 there was a revival directed byTazewell Thompson atNew York City Opera . In 2007,Los Angeles Opera staged a revival directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by John DeMain, who led the history-making Houston Opera revival of Porgy and Bess in 1976."Porgy and Bess: the Musical"
"Porgy and Bess: the Musical" premiered
November 9 2006 at theSavoy Theatre (London), directed by Trevor Nunn. Nunn had previously directed the show as an opera at the Glyndebourne Festival and as avideotape d television production withWillard White ; for this production, he adapted the lengthy opera to fit the conventions ofmusical theatre . Working with the Gershwin estate, Nunn used dialogue from the original novel and subsequent Broadway stage play to replace therecitative with naturalistic scenes. He also did not use conventional operatic voices in this production relying on former tv soap opera stars as leads.Gareth Valentine provided the musical adaptation.The musical was a massive falure and closed months early after poor box office.This original cast of this version included:
*
Clarke Peters as Porgy
*Nicola Hughes as Bess
*O-T Fagbenle as Sportin' Life
*Cornel S. John as CrownRacial controversy
From the outset, the opera's depiction of
African American s attracted controversy. Problems with the racial aspects of the opera continue to this day.Virgil Thomson , a white American composer, stated that "Folk lore subjects recounted by an outsider are only valid as long as the folk in question is unable to speak for itself, which is certainly not true of the American Negro in 1935." [Thomson, Virgil in "Modern Music", November-December 1935. pp. 16–17.]Duke Ellington stated "the times are here to debunk Gershwin's lampblack Negroisms." [Greenberg, Rodney. "George Gershwin", Phaidon Press (1998), ISBN 0-7148-3504-8 p. 196.] Several of the members of the original cast later stated that they, too, had concerns that their characters might play into a stereotype that African Americans lived in poverty, took drugs and solved their problems with their fists.A planned production by the Negro Repertory Company of
Seattle in the late 1930s, part of theFederal Theater Project , had been cancelled because actors were displeased with what they viewed as a racist portrayal of aspects of African American life. The initial plan was that they would perform the play in a "Negro dialect ", which thesePacific Northwest African American actors did not speak, and were supposed to learn from a dialect coach. Florence James attempted a compromise of dropping the use of dialect pronunciations, but ultimately the production was canceled outright. [Becker, Paula. " [http://www.historylink.org/output.cfm?file_id=3976 "Negro Repertory Company"] on HistoryLink.org,10 November 2002 .]Another production of "Porgy and Bess", this time at the
University of Minnesota in 1939, ran into similar troubles. According to Barbara Cyrus, one of the few black students at the university at the time, members of the local African American community saw the play as "detrimental to the race" and as a vehicle that promoted raciststereotypes . The play was eventually cancelled due to pressure from the African American community, which saw their success as proof of the increasing political power of blacks in the Twin Cities. [ [http://www.alumni.umn.edu/The_Way_Spaces_Were_Allocated__African_Americans_on_Campus__Part_II.html "The Way Spaces Were Allocated: African Americans on Campus, Part II"] by Tim Brady, "Minnesota", November-December 2002, University of Minnesota Alumni Association.]This belief that "Porgy and Bess" was racist gained strength with the
American Civil Rights andBlack Power movements of the 1950s, '60s and '70s. In fact, as these movements advanced, "Porgy and Bess" was seen as more and more out of place. When the play was revived in the 1960s, social critic and African American educatorHarold Cruse called it, "The most incongruous, contradictory cultural symbol ever created in the Western World." African-American AuthorJohn Hope Franklin did not totally agree with this view, stating in his introduction to "Three Negro Classics" "Sportin' Life clowns but not for white audiences. Porgy's clowning is a deliberate frustration of white power. Porgy also playsUncle Tom , but he is never servile and lives for no white master."Gershwin’s all-black opera was also unpopular with some celebrated black artists.
Harry Belafonte declined to play Porgy in the late 1950s film version, so it was offered toSidney Poitier who regretted his choice ever after. Betty Allen, president of theHarlem School of the Arts , admittedly loathed the piece andGrace Bumbry , who excelled in the 1985 Metropolitan Opera production as Bess, made the often cited statement: "I thought it beneath me, I felt I had worked far too hard, that we had come far too far to have to retrogress to 1935. My way of dealing with it was to see that it was really a piece ofAmericana , of American history, whether we liked it or not. Whether I sing it or not, it was still going to be there." [ [http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1997-11/porgy.html The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess ] ]Over time, however, the opera gained acceptance from the opera community and some (though not all [ [http://www.firstunitarian.net/publications/sermon/20000820s.asp "I Got Plenty O Nuttin"] by the Reverend Phyllis L. Hubbell, sermon at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore, given
August 20 2000 .] ) in the African American community. Maurice Press stated in 2004 that "Porgy and Bess" belongs as much to the black singer-actors who bring it to life as it does to the Heywards and the Gershwins." [Press, Maurice. " [http://newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=4308 George Gershwin and African American Music] . "New MusicBox",8 July 2005 .] Indeed, Ira Gershwin stipulated that only blacks be allowed to play the lead roles when the opera was performed in the United States, launching the careers of several prominent opera singers.During the era of
apartheid inSouth Africa , several South African theatre companies planned to put on all-white productions of Porgy and Bess.Ira Gershwin , as heir to his brother, consistently refused to permit these productions to be staged.Musical elements
In the summer of 1934, George Gershwin worked on the opera in
Charleston, South Carolina . He drew inspiration from the James IslandGullah community, which he felt had preserved some African musical traditions. This research added to the authenticity of his work. [Ewen, David, "The Home Book of 20th Century Music", Arco, 1956, p. 138]The music itself reflects his New York jazz roots, but also draws on southern black traditions. Gershwin modeled the pieces after each type of
folk song that the composer knew about; jubilees,blues , praying songs, street cries, work songs, and spirituals are blended with traditionalaria s andrecitative s. [Standifer, James (1997)]In addition to being influenced by New York jazz and southern black music, many biographers and contemporaries have noted that for many numbers Gershwin borrowed melodies from Jewish liturgical music. Gershwin
biographer Edward Jablonski has claimed that the melody to "It Ain't Necessarily So" was taken from the Haftarah blessing, [Jablonski, Edward. Gershwin. New York:Doubleday, (1987). Cited in Benaroya, Adam (May 2000). [http://www.ilperetz.org/graduates/adam_benaroya.htm "The Jewish Roots in George Gershwin’s Music"] . "I.L. Peretz Community Jewish School". Retrieved January 2, 2005.] and others have attributed it to the Torah blessing. [Pareles, Jon (January 29, 1997). [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E2DA1E3AF93AA15752C0A961958260 History of a Nation in Its Song to Itself ] . "New York Times". Retrieved February 21, 2006.] Allusions to Jewish music have been detected by other observers as well. One musicologist detected 'an uncanny resemblance' between the folk tune "Havenu Shalom Aleichem" and the spiritual "It Take a Long Pull to Get There". [Whitfield, Stephen J. (September 1999).]Use of leitmotif
The score makes use of
leitmotif s, which are introduced to establish each character with a unique musical theme. The score then intertwines these themes to show conflict between characters. The best example of this is after the aria "There's a boat dat's leaving soon for New York" in Act III Scene ii.Bess' idea of Porgy is expressed by snippets their duet "Bess, you is my woman now," in which they pledge their fidelity to one another:
("")Her idea of Sportin' Life is shown through snippets of his
aria "There's a boat that's leavin' soon for New York" in which the drug peddler tries to persuade Bess to leave Catfish Row with him:
(" ")Bess's difficult decision to follow him is represented by a conflict of these two melodies. The first is heard in a sparse and distant
orchestration :
(" ")Sportin' Life is sure that Bess will follow him, and the quiet cocaine motif is heard. Then his own song is heard in a dazzling, overblown
orchestration , complete with swaggering rhythms:
(" ")This contrast represents Sportin' Life's successful corruption of Bess's love for Porgy.
elected recordings
Excerpts
Days after the Broadway premiere of "Porgy and Bess" with an all-black cast, two white opera singers,
Lawrence Tibbett andHelen Jepson , both members of theMetropolitan Opera , recorded highlights of the opera in a New York sound studio, released as "Highlights from Porgy and Bess ". Members of the original cast were not recorded until 1940, whenTodd Duncan andAnne Brown recorded selections of the work. Two years later, when the first Broadway revival occurred, American Decca rushed other members of the cast into the recording studio to record other selections not recorded in 1940. These two albums were marketed as a two volume 78 rpm set "Selections from George Gershwin's folk opera Porgy and Bess ". After LP's had begun to be manufactured in 1948, the recording was transferred to LP, and subsequently, to CD.For years, the two albums mentioned above were the only ones available of music from "Porgy and Bess".
Although there was an initial feeling by members of the jazz community that a Jewish piano player and a white novelist could not adequately convey the plight of blacks in a 1930s Charleston ghetto, jazz musicians warmed up to the opera after twenty years.
Louis Armstrong andElla Fitzgerald recorded an album in 1957 in which they sang and scatted Gershwin's tunes. The next year,Miles Davis recorded what some consider a a seminal interpretation of the opera arranged forbig band .In 1959,
Columbia Masterworks Records released a soundtrack album of Samuel Goldwyn's film version of "Porgy and Bess", which had been made that year. It was not a complete version of the opera, nor was it even a complete version of the film soundtrack, which featured more music than could be contained on a single LP. The album remained in print until the early 1970s, when it was withdrawn from stores at the request of the Gershwin estate. It is the first stereo album of music from "Porgy and Bess" with an all-black cast. However, according to the albumliner notes ,Sammy Davis, Jr. was under contract to another recording company, and his vocal tracks for the film could not be used on the album, soCab Calloway substituted his own vocals of Sportin' Life's songs.Robert McFerrin was the singing voice of Porgy, andAdele Addison the singing voice of Bess. The white singerLoulie Jean Norman was the singing voice of Clara (portrayed onscreen byDiahann Carroll ), andInez Matthews the singing voice of Serena (portrayed onscreen byRuth Attaway ).In 1963,
Leontyne Price andWilliam Warfield , who had starred in the 1952 world tour of "Porgy and Bess", recorded their own album of excerpts from the opera forRCA Victor . None of the other singers from that production appeared on that album, butJohn W. Bubbles , the original Sportin' Life, substituted for Cab Calloway (who had played Sportin' Life onstage in the 1952 production). The 1963 recording of "Porgy and Bess" excerpts remains the only official recording of the score on which Bubbles sings Sportin' Life's two big numbers.Complete recordings
*1951: Columbia Masterworks: the company recorded a 3-LP album of what was then the standard performing version of "Porgy and Bess" - the most complete recording made of the opera up to that time. It was billed as a "complete" version, but was complete only insofar as that was the way the work was usually performed then. (Actually, nearly an hour was cut from the opera.) Because album producer
Goddard Lieberson was eager to bring as much of "Porgy and Bess" as he felt was practical on records at the time, the recording featured more of Gershwin's originalrecitatives and orchestrations than had ever been heard before on records. The recording was conducted by Lehman Engel, and starredLawrence Winters andCamilla Williams , both from theNew York City Opera . Several singers who had been associated with the original 1935 production and the 1942 revival of "Porgy and Bess" were finally given a chance to record their roles more or less complete. The album was highly acclaimed as a giant step in recorded opera in its time. The album was re-released at budget price on the Odyssey label in the early 1970s. It has subsequently appeared on CD on Sony's "Masterworks Heritage" CD series, and on the Naxos label as well. The album is not sung in as directly "operatic" a style as later versions, treading a fine line between opera and musical theatre.*1976:
Decca Records : The first complete recording of the opera based on Gershwin's original score, restoring the material cut by Gershwin during rehearsals for the New York premiere in 1935, was made by theCleveland Orchestra underLorin Maazel in 1976 for Decca Records in the UK andLondon Records in the U.S., in time for the U.S. Bicentennial. It starredWillard White singing his first Porgy, andLeona Mitchell as Bess. The recording was praised by critics for its performance quality and racial significance, but at the same time was highly criticized by some for not bringing out the "jazzier" qualities of the score.*1977: RCA Victor: A subsequent complete recording of the opera by the
Houston Grand Opera based on the complete original score. :Both the 1976 and 1977 recordings of the opera won Grammy Awards forBest Opera Recording , making "Porgy and Bess" one of the few operas (if not the only one) to win this award over two consecutive years. [ [http://www.grammys.com GRAMMY.com ] ]*1989:
EMI : "The Glyndebourne album" also based on the complete original score, without Gershwin's cuts. [Music was played by The London Philarmonic and conducted by Simon Rattle. Producer: David R. Murray; Balance Engineer: Mark Vigars; Assistant Producer: Tony Harrison; Production Assistant: Alison Fox. Recorde at No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London. Recorded using B&W loudspeakers. Box cover, booklet cover & photos: Guy Gravett. Original sound recording made By EMI Records Ltd. 1989. ]*2006: The latest recording of the opera made by the
Nashville Symphony Orchestra underJohn Mauceri is the first to observe Gershwin's cuts and thus present the opera as it was heard in New York in 1935."Porgy and Bess" was proclaimed the official opera of the State of
South Carolina in 2001. [Edger, Walter. "The South Carolina Enclyopedia", Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006]Adaptations
Film and television
A 1959 film version was produced in 70 mm
Todd-AO bySamuel Goldwyn , but plagued with problems. Rouben Mamoulian, who had directed the 1935 Broadway premiere, was hired to direct the film, but was subsequently fired in favor of directorOtto Preminger for daring to suggest that the film be made on location inSouth Carolina after a fire on the sound stage destroyed the film's sets. Goldwyn, who never liked making films on location, considered Mamoulian's request a sign of disloyalty. [Marx, Arthur: Goldwyn - The Man Behind the Myth]Robert McFerrin dubbed the songs forSidney Poitier 's Porgy andAdele Addison forDorothy Dandridge 's Bess.Ruth Attaway 's Serena andDiahann Carroll 's Clara were also overdubbed. Although Dandridge, Davis and Carroll were all singers, the women's voices were not considered operatic enough. Davis andPearl Bailey (who played Maria in the movie) were the only principals who sang their own songs.Andre Previn 's adaptation of the score won him anAcademy Award , the film's only Oscar.The Gershwin estate was disappointed with the film, as the score was edited to make it more like a musical. Much of the music was omitted from the film, and many of Gershwin's orchestrations were either changed or completely scrapped. It was shown on
network television in the U.S. only once, in 1967. It was pulled from release in 1974, and prints can now only be seen in film archives or on bootleg videos.In 1993, the Glyndebourne Festival stage production of "Porgy and Bess" was greatly expanded scenically and
videotape d in atelevision studio. It was telecast by the BBC in England and by PBS in the United States. It was directed by Trevor Nunn and featured a cast of American singers, with the exception of Willard White, who is Jamaican but sounded American, as Porgy.Cynthia Haymon sang the role of Bess. Nunn's "opening up" of the stage production was considered highly imaginative, his cast received much critical praise, [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979313,00.html] [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1DB163AF935A35753C1A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2] [http://homevideo.about.com/od/dvdreviewslong/a/PorgyBessDVDMoa.htm] and the three hour production retained nearly all of Gershwin's music, heard in the original 1935 orchestrations - including the opera's sungrecitatives , which had occasionally been turned into spoken dialogue in earlier productions. No new dialogue was written for this production, as had been done in the 1959 film; every word in this 1993 staging came from the original opera libretto. This "Porgy and Bess" was subsequently released onVHS andDVD , and is, so far, the only version of the opera to appear in those formats. It has won far greater acclaim than the 1959 film, which was widely panned by most critics for allegedly not being entirely faithful to Gershwin's opera, for refining the language grammatically, and for being staged in what they called an "overblown" manner.The 1993 television production of "Porgy and Bess" was nominated for four
Emmy Awards , and won for itsart direction . [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107854/awards Porgy and Bess (1993) (TV) - Awards ] ]In 2002, the
New York City Opera telecast its new version of the Houston Opera production, from the stage ofLincoln Center . This version featured far more cuts than the previous telecast, but, like all stage versions produced since 1976, used the sung recitatives and Gershwin's orchestrations. The telecast also included interviews with directorTazewell Thompson and was hosted byBeverly Sills .In 2006 the opera was presented as a musical in an adaptation by Trevor Nunn, who also directed. Gareth Valentine was musical supervisor. Like the 1993 production, this version was publicized as "The Gershwins' 'Porgy And Bess' ". It was staged at the Savoy Theatre, London to critical acclaim, but disappointing box office.
While not an adaptation, "
Sesame Street " parodied the song "A Woman is a Sometime Thing" in season 36 of the show.Hoots the Owl sang toCookie Monster about how "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food".The 1985 movie "White Nights" featured a scene in which
Gregory Hines performed "There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York" as Sportin' Life. Hines' rendition, before aSiberia n audience, included a tap dancing sequence. DirectorTaylor Hackford pointed out in a special edition DVD release of the film that it was necessary to locate a Russian "woman of color" (Helene Denbey) to portray Bess, as per Gershwin's stipulations.uites
Gershwin prepared an orchestral suite containing music from the opera after "Porgy and Bess" closed early on Broadway. Though originally titled "Suite from "Porgy and Bess", Ira later renamed it "
Catfish Row ".In 1942 Robert Russell Bennett arranged a medley (rather than a suite) for orchestra which has often been heard in the concert hall, known as "Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture." It is based on Gershwin's original scoring, though for a slightly different instrumentation (the piano was removed from the orchestral texture at the request of the conductor Fritz Reiner, for whom the arrangement was made).
Morton Gould also arranged an orchestral suite in the 1950s.ongs
"Porgy and Bess" contains many songs that have become popular in their own right, becoming standards in jazz and blues in addition to their original operatic setting.
Some of the more popular songs include:
* "Summertime", Act I Scene 1
* "A Woman is a Sometime Thing", Act I Scene 1
* "My Man's Gone Now ", Act I Scene 2
* "It Take a Long Pull to Get There", Act II Scene 1
* "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'", Act II Scene 1
* "Buzzard Keep on Flyin'", Act II Scene 1
* "Bess, You Is My Woman Now", Act II Scene 1
* "Oh, I Can't Sit Down," Act II Scene 1
* "It Ain't Necessarily So ", Act II Scene 2
* "What you want wid Bess", Act II Scene 2
* "Oh, Doctor Jesus", Act II Scene 3
* "I Loves You, Porgy ", Act II Scene 3
* "A Red-Haired Woman", Act II Scene 4
* "There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York", Act III Scene 2
* "Bess, O Where's My Bess?", Act III Scene 3
* "O Lawd, I'm On My Way", Act III Scene 3Some of the more celebrated renditions of these songs include
Sarah Vaughan 's "It Ain't Necessarily So" and the versions of "Summertime" recorded byBillie Holiday , Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. Numerous other musicians have recorded "Summertime" in varying styles, including both instrumental and vocal recordings.Janis Joplin recorded aBlues rock version of "Summertime" withBig Brother & The Holding Company . Sublime recorded a (radically reworked) version, as well.Billy Stewart 's version became a Top 10 Pop and R&B hit in 1966 forChess Records .Nina Simone recorded several "Porgy & Bess" songs. She made her debut in 1959 with a version of "I Loves You, Porgy", which became a "Billboard " top 20 hit. [" [http://www.boscarol.com/nina/html/manual/chart.html I Loves You, Porgy] ", Nina Simone version, on "Billboard" Chart] Other songs she recorded included "Porgy, I's Your Woman Now" [i.e. "Bess, You Is My Woman Now"] , "Summertime" and "My Man's Gone Now"."Summertime" is the most popular cover song in popular music, with more than 17,500 different versions recorded. Even seemingly unlikely performers such as
the Zombies have made recordings of it. An international group of collectors of recordings of Summertime by the name The Summertime Connection has more than11,900 different recordings in their collection.Notes
References
* Brady, Tim. [http://www.alumni.umn.edu/The_Way_Spaces_Were_Allocated__African_Americans_on_Campus__Part_II.html "The Way Spaces Were Allocated: African Americans on Campus, Part II"] . "Minnesota", November-December 2002, University of Minnesota Alumni Association.
*Jablonski, Edward. "Gershwin: A Biography". Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday & Company, 1987. ISBN 0-7924-2164-7
*Jablonski, Edward and Lawrence D. Stewart. "The Gershwin Years". Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday & Company, 1973. Second edition. ISBN 0-306-80739-4
*Kimball, Robert and Alfred Simon. "The Gershwins". New York: Atheneum, 1973. ISBN 0-689-10569-X
*Marx, Arthur. "Goldwyn: A Biography of the Man Behind the Myth", W.W. Norton, 1976, ISBN 0393074978
*Schwartz, Charles. "Gershwin: His Life and Music". New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1973. ISBN 0-306-80096-9
*Standifer, James. "The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess." "Humanities" November/December 1997. (Also accessible on [http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1997-11/porgy.html NEH website] )
*Southern Eileen. "The Music of Black Americans: A History". New York: W. W. Norton & Company; 3rd edition. ISBN 0-393-97141-4Further reading
* Fisher, Burton D. "Porgy and Bess (Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series)" Coral Gables, Florida: Opera Journeys Publishing, 2000. ISBN 1-930841-19-1. "Overview of the opera"
* Capote, Truman. "The Muses Are Heard: An Account". New York: Random House, 1956. ISBN 0-394-43732-2 "Story of the 1955 "Porgy and Bess" production in Moscow"
* Hamm, Charles. "The Theatre Guild Production of Porgy and Bess." Journal of the American Musicological Society, Fall, 1987, pp. 495–532.
* Weaver, David E. "The Birth of "Porgy and Bess", pp. 80-98. "Black Diva of the Thirties - The Life ofRuby Elzy ", University Press of Mississippi, 2004.External links
* [http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/gershwin/porgy&bess.html Article on "Porgy and Bess"] by Jane Erb, hosted by classical.net
* [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/porgy/index.html "Porgy and Bess: An American Voice"] . Online version ofPBS documentary on the opera
* [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/PORGY/porghome.html Hypertext edition of the novel "Porgy"]
* [http://www.newyorker.com/critics/content/?050110crat_atlarge "Jazzbo: Why we still listen to Gershwin"] "The New Yorker " article by Claudia Roth Pierpoint
* [http://www.ibdb.com/Show.asp?id=7190 Internet Broadway Database listings for all Broadway productions]
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