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Porgy and Bess

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The cast of Porgy and Bess during the Boston try-out prior to the Broadway opening.
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The cast of Porgy and Bess during the Boston try-out prior to the Broadway opening.

Porgy and Bess is an opera with music by George Gershwin and libretto by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on Heyward's novel Porgy and the play of the same name that he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy. All three works deal with African American life in the fictitious Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina in the early 1930s.

Originally conceived by Gershwin as an "American folk opera," the work was first performed in various forms in the fall of 1935, but was not widely accepted in the United States as a legitimate opera until the late 1970s and '80s: it is now considered part of the standard operatic repertoire. Porgy and Bess is also regularly performed internationally, and several recordings of the complete work, including Gershwin's cuts, have been made. Despite this acclaim, the opera has been controversial; some from the outset have considered it racist.

"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 and folk 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.

Contents

Characters

With the exception of the small speaking roles, all of the characters are black.

Plot

Setting: Catfish Row, a fictitious suburb of Charleston, South Carolina in the 'recent past' (c.1930).

Act I

The opera begins with a short introduction which segues into an evening in Catfish Row. Jabso 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, which ends in Robbins's death. Crown runs, telling Bess to fend for herself. The door is shut on her by most of the residents, except Porgy, who shelters her. 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'".
"My man's gone now" sung by Cynthia Clarey in the Glyndebourne Production
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"My man's gone now" sung by Cynthia Clarey in the Glyndebourne Production

Act II

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.

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.

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. 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.
"There's a boat dat's leavin' soon for New York" with Damon Evans and Cynthia Haymon in the Glyndebourne Production
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"There's a boat dat's leavin' soon for New York" with Damon Evans and Cynthia Haymon in the Glyndebourne Production

Act III

The chorus consoles Clara ("Clara, don't you be downhearted"). Crown enters to claim Bess, and a fight ensures, which ends with Porgy stabbing Crown. Porgy exclaims to Bess "You've got a man now. You've got Porgy!" 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. Porgy returns to Catfish Row richer, after playing craps on the street with his loaded dice. He gives gifts to the residents, and does not understand why they all seem so downhearted. He sees Bess's baby is with Serena and madly asks where Bess is. Maria and Serena tell him that Bess has run off with Sportin' Life to New York in the trio "Bess is gone." Porgy throws away his crutches, and leaves for New York to find Bess in the closing song "Oh Lawd, I'm on my way".

Compositional history

Gershwin first expressed interest in composing the opera upon reading Heyward's Porgy in 1926, and quickly dispatched a letter to the author. Though initial meetings were promising, Gershwin was in no hurry to write the opera, and Heyward soon collaborated with Dorothy in writing a play named Porgy, which opened in 1927.

After consulting with Gershwin, Heyward sold the story rights to Porgy in the fall of 1932 to Al Jolson, who had a desire to team with Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II to create a musical on the subject with Jolson playing the lead role in blackface. Initial enthusiasm for the proposed musical soon waned, however, leaving Gershwin alone to conceive a staged version of the work.

Productions

Original Broadway cast

The first page of George Gershwin's autographed orchestral score to Porgy and Bess.
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The first page of George Gershwin's autographed orchestral score to Porgy and Bess.

Gershwin's complete work, running four hours (counting the two intermissions), was performed privately in a concert version in Carnegie Hall, in the fall of 1935. A greatly cut version was performed on September 30, 1935 at the Colonial Theatre in Boston, and the Broadway premiere followed soon after on October 10, 1935 at the Alvin Theater in New York City. Jablonski & Stewart, 227-229 The Broadway run lasted a mere 124 performances. Rouben Mamoulian produced and directed and Alexander Smallens conducted.

After the disappointing run on Broadway, a tour started on January 27, 1936 in Philadelphia and travelled to Pittsburgh and Chicago before ending in Washington, D.C. on March 21, 1936. During the Washington run, the cast—as led by Todd Duncan—protested segregation among the audience. Eventually management gave into the demands allowed for the first integrated performance at National Theatre. [Porgy and Bess], the Library of Congress American Memory project, Today in History, September 2.

This original production included:

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.

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., making it much more like the musical theater Americans were used to hearing from Gershwin. The orchestra was reduced, the cast was halved, and many recitatives were reduced to spoken dialog. Standifer, James. "The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess." Humanities November/December 1997. (Also accessible on [NEH website])

After trying out her concepts at a summer theater in Maplewood, New Jersey in September 1941, the show opened at the Majestic 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.

European premieres

On March 27, 1943, the opera had its European premiere at the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen. 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. See note 3 above.

Other all-white or mostly-white productions in Europe took place in Zurich in 1945 and 1950, and Copenhagen in 1946.

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1952 production

Blevins Davis and Robert Breen produced a revival in 1952 which restored much of the music cut away in 1942, along with many of the recitatives put back in place. But, with two condensed acts, it still was short of the full version composed by Gershwin, which had not yet been seen by the public. This tour however restored the work to its full operatic form, and Porgy and Bess was warmly received through Europe. See note 3 above. The London premiere took place on October 9, 1952 at the Stoll Theatre, where it remained until February 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, and Cab Calloway as Sportin' Life. The small role of Ruby was played by a young Maya 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's Ziegfeld 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 at La Scala in Milan, in February of 1955. A historic yet tense premiere took place in Moscow in December 1955, the first time an American theater group had been to the Soviet capital since the Bolshevik Revolution. Author Truman Capote travelled with the cast and crew, writing an account of this event in his book The Muses Are Heard: An Account.

Houston Grand'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 on September 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 the first performance which included the original uncut full score by Gershwin, allowing 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. This production won the Houston Grand a Tony Award—the only opera ever to receive one—and a Grammy Award.

Subsequent productions

Another Broadway production was staged in 1983. After toying with the idea of staging the opera since the 1930s, the Metropolitan Opera staged the work in 1985, opening on February 6. England's Glyndebourne Festival tackled the work with a 1986 production. A semi-staged version of this production was performed at the Proms in 1998. The centennial celebration of the Gershwin brothers from 1996–1998 included a new production as well. The constant revival of the opera and inclusion of old and new cast members allowed for the forming of traditions that were passed down from the experienced cast members.

Racial controversy

From the outset, the opera's depiction of African Americans 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 0714835048 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 the Federal 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 these Pacific 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. "["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 racist stereotypes. 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. ["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 and Black 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 educator Harold Cruse called it, "The most incongruous, contradictory cultural symbol ever created in the Western World." See note 3 above. Author John 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 plays Uncle Tom, but he is never servile and lives for no white master." See note 3 above.

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 to Sidney Poitier who regretted his choice ever after. Betty Allen, president of the Harlem School of the Arts, admittedly loathed the piece and Grace 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 of Americana, of American history, whether we liked it or not. Whether I sing it or not, it was still going to be there." [link]

Over time, however, the opera gained acceptance from the opera community and some (though not all["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. "[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 in South 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 Island Gullah community, who he felt had traditions that were reminiscent of Africa. This research added to the authenticity of his work.

The music itself reflects his New York jazz roots, but also portrays 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 traditional arias and recitatives.

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 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). ["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). [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)..

The score made use of leitmotifs, which are introduced as the theme of a song. They themselves are not folk melodies, but draw inspiration from them in such a way that genuine folk music is recalled.

Use of leitmotif

George Gershwin introduces leitmotifs early in the opera to establish characters musically, and uses an intertwining of 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:
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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:
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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:
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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:
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This contrast represents Sportin' Life's successful corruption of Bess's love for Porgy.

Recordings

The cover of the Glyndebourne album
The cover of the Glyndebourne album

Main article:Porgy and Bess discography
Days after the Broadway premiere of Porgy and Bess with an all-black cast, two white opera singers, Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson, both members of the Metropolitan 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, when Todd Duncan and Anne Brown recorded selections of the work. Two years later, when the first Broadway revival occurred, Decca rushed other members of the cast into the recording studio to record other selections not recorded in 1940. These two records 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.

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 and Ella Fitzgerald recorded an album in 1957 in which they sang and scatted Gershwin's tunes. The next year, Miles Davis recorded a seminal interpretation of the opera arranged for big band.

In 1959, Columbia Masterworks released a soundtrack album of the 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 1970's, 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. Sammy Davis, Jr., however, was under contract to another recording company, and his vocal tracks could not be used on the album. Cab Calloway substituted for Davis on the soundtrack album.

In 1963, Leontyne Price and William Warfield, who had starred in the 1952 world tour of "Porgy and Bess", recorded their own album of excerpts from the opera for RCA Victor. None of the other singers from that production appeared on that album, but John 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.

In 1951, Columbia Masterworks 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.) This album featured more of Gershwin's original recitatives and orchestrations than had ever been heard before on records. It was produced by Goddard Lieberson, who was then committed to putting on LP shows that had not been recorded in that medium. The recording was conducted by Lehman Engel, and starred Lawrence Winters and Camilla Williams, both from the New 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, and was re-released at budget price on the Odyssey label in the early 1970's. 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.

The first complete recording of the opera, with an all-black cast, was made by the Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel in 1976, in time for the U.S. Bicentennial. It starred Willard White singing his first Porgy, and Leona 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.

Operatic purists have found the best recordings to be those produced by the Houston Grand Opera in 1977 and the Glyndebourne album from 1989. These three latest recordings restore the full score of Gershwin's opera, music which had never before been performed in the United States.

Adaptations

Film and television

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A 1959 film version was produced by Samuel Goldwyn, but plagued with problems. Rouben Mamoulian, who had directed the 1935 Broadway premiere, was fired in favor of director Otto Preminger. Opera singers dubbed the songs for Sidney Poitier's Porgy and Dorothy Dandridge's Bess, as well as for Ruth Attaway's Serena and Diahann Carroll's Clara (although Ms. Carroll can sing, her voice was not considered operatic enough). 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 pulled from release in 1974, and prints can now only be seen in film archives.

In 1993, the Glyndebourne stage production of "Porgy and Bess" was greatly expanded scenically and videotaped in a television 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 both sang and acted well, and the three hour production retained nearly all of Gershwin's music, heard in the original 1935 orchestrations - including the opera's sung recitatives, which had occasionally been turned into spoken dialogue in earlier productions. The 1993 "Porgy and Bess" was subsequently released on VHS and DVD, 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.

In 2002, the New York City Opera telecast its new version of the Houston Opera production, from the stage of Lincoln 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.

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 to Cookie Monster about how "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food".

Suites

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. Morton Gould also arranged an orchestral suite in the 1950s.

Songs

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:

Sarah Vaughn's rendition of "It Ain't Necessarily So" and Billie Holiday's version of "Summertime". Frank Sinatra also had recorded "Summertime". Janis Joplin recorded a Blues rock version of "Summertime" with Big Brother & The Holding Company. Billy Stewart's version became a Top 10 Pop and R&B hit in 1966 for Chess Records.

"Summertime" vies with the Beatles "Yesterday" as one of the most popular cover songs in popular music, with an estimated 2,500 different versions recorded. Even seemingly unlikely performers such as the Zombies have made recordings of it.

Notes

:[In Search of American Jewish Culture]. Brandeis University Press. ISBN 0874517540. Amazon Books. Retrieved January 2, 2006.

References

Further reading

External links


The World of Porgy and Bess
Porgy>Book and play - Opera

Creators: George Gershwin - Ira Gershwin - DuBose Heyward - Dorothy Heyward

Media: Discography - Film adaptation

Songs and adaptations: "Summertime" - "Catfish Row"

 

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