DL, tell me about Porgy and Bess

I'm a big fan of jazz and so know several of the songs from Porgy and Bess, but knew very little about the plot, so I decided to read DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy. (I also plan to watch some staged versions of the opera, and maybe the 1959 film version.)

It doesn't appear that the 1935 Broadway production was very successful, nor was the 1942 revival, but if I am wrong please set me straight. Was it too operatic (especially the 1935 production) for theater-going audiences of the 1930s? Was the all-black cast a turn-off?

I can see why people were offended by the story (and I had no idea that drug use was central to the plot), but considering a lot of stuff produced during that era ... I didn't find it THAT offensive. (The dialect was cringey at times.) I found it interesting that there were few white characters, and with the exception of an attorney, they were all more or less antagonists. There was no overarching white savior. Porgy was a great character and, at least in the novel, written with warmth and nuance. And here's a MARY!!!!! moment: at the point in the novel that later became "I Loves You, Porgy" I teared up thinking of the song.

I knew it had a tragic ending, but it wasn't what I expected.

Anyway, I love the music, and I'm curious to know more about the opera itself (and especially how it's viewed today).

(My other favorite cover of "I Loves You, Porgy")

I’d like to see them to P and G with an all white cast, just to piss people off. Lawza! What a riot, but seriously it might be very compelling.

Jerri Blank has sadly lost her top notes.

Good luck finding the 1959 film version - it's not available (because of copyright or something).

I saw the 1970s B'way revival. Some great music surrounded by a show that is excruciatingly boring.

The entire opera is sort of boring. The excerpts we all know are stunning of course.

I saw the last revival on Bway with Audra. It cut out all the boring parts but it felt like a greatest hits of Porgy and Bess

This is Gershwin's Magnum Opus. It is a pure piece of Original Americana and, therefore, cannot be consigned to any preconceived slot of categorization/generalization, or stereotype. It is a work that stood by, and continues to stands by, itself.

We went to see the Francesca Zambello revival at Bass Hall in Fort Worth. It was performed as an opera and it turned my partner on to opera. Read what R7 said and repeat it over and over. It's a stunning work.

r7 / r8 how do you respond to criticisms that it's too boring? (Just curious.)

Free download takes 10 minutes.

It’s as true to the negro experience today as it was then! It has aged extremely well. Pimps, drug dealers and black whores have always been the best things about the negro culture! We’ve been singing about it for 60 years and will do so forever!

The highlights are some of the greatest music ever written. As a whole, the opera drags.

Do you recommend any particular recordings r13?

Why did you call me an asshole?

Not R13 but the 1970s Houston Grand Opera production that played on Broadway is widely considered the best. It’s also the most theatrical.

R14, the classic recording of excerpts is the one with Leontyne Price and William Warfield

Not sure if other states have such a designation but it is the official Opera of the state of South Carolina. I remember as a kid visiting Charleston on a school trip and they were doing excerpts performed around the city, it was really nice.

Barbra's "Porgy and Bess" medley from the Broadway Album is both thrilling and awkward. Hearing a white woman sing "I'se yo' woman now, I is, I is" is wince-inducing.

R21 I've never understood why people wince about the use of dialect. It isn't wince-inducing for an English speaking white person to sing in another language for a song, so I don't understand why singing in dialect is any different. To me it is no different than a person suddenly getting a twang when they sing country. Or how, for some reason, I develop a posh English accent when singing Hymns or Christmas Carols.

The dialect in P&B was authentically the way those characters would have spoken, to try and turn their speech into standard English robs our culture of our full history.

This is kind of an aside, r22, but the original novel uses the n-word quite liberally. That was not included in the libretto.

For one of my kiddie birthday parties, my mother booked the puppet show version, which had a taped score. I died a thousand deaths.

How did this Polish/Jewish/European inhabit the mind of certain Southern Americans and steal their music?

What music preceded 'Porgy and Bess'? There must be precedents.

[quote] This is Gershwin's Magnum Opus

But did he die soon afterwards with insufficient time to make another Magnum Opus?

R26 The novel is very poetic so the lyrics came easy. Also, just reading the lyrics one can already hear it musically. DuBose Heyward was a native Charlestonian who was surrounded by these people everyday. Residentially, Charleston was probably one of the least segregated Southern cities, the white people in the mansions didn't want their servants too far away. You could be in a mansion neighborhood, and turn down an alley to find a poor black neighborhood.

Also, Gershwin was already well known for jazz compositions.

I don't believe much of the gossip peddled by the Datalounge's Addled Eldergays.

But one of you maintains that Gershwin had secret homosexual longings. What are the facts?

R30 Let me tell you about my first night of college. I was a freshman at the College of Charleston, a virgin. I got high for the first time ever, with my new roommate 30 min after our parents left. We ate in the cafeteria where these cool KA bros invited us to their frat for a welcome Freshman party. At the KA house, it was like walking into a Hollywood frat house, everything was perfect. And, in the background, on a loop, was a trance/dance remix of Summertime. I ended up doing coke for the first and last time and slept with both an ex-head cheerleader belle and a frat bro that night. I awoke the next morning on the Battery with various bodily fluids dried on me.

It was a rather fun night.

R31 is channelling their inner Mica Paris.

Saw it on Broadway with Miss Audra.

[quote}How did this Polish/Jewish/European inhabit the mind of certain Southern Americans and steal their music?

What? What did Gershwin steal?

[quote]How did this Polish/Jewish/European inhabit the mind of certain Southern Americans and steal their music?

What? What did Gershwin steal?

I saw the opera - very good, but now I'd like to know how it was as a Broadway show.

I can't think of other pieces that are both a Broadway show and an opera.

[quote] a Broadway show

It was more of "a musical play" rather than a show. There were no sequins. The audience didn't applaud the scenery. The performers didn't break character and respond to the audience applause in the middle of a song. The audience didn't applaud DURING the song (which may be acceptable in a nightclub but not in a proper "musical play").

R36 A Little Night Music, Candide

R36 I've heard the music in so many different styles, that I totally get it. The score can sound completely different depending on the singer and the mix of instruments. When opera singers sing it sounds operettic, but it can sound like gospel, blues, country, pop, it can sound however you want it to sound because Jazz has now been incorporated into every genre.

[quote] This is Gershwin's Magnum Opus.

He died 20 months after it appeared.

Think of all the music Gershwin took to the grave with him.

in 1937, "They Can't Take That Away From Me" from SHALL WE DANCE was George Gershwin's only Oscar nomination for "Best Song:".

It lost to "Sweet Lelani" (by Harry Owens) from WAKIKI WEDDING. Introduced by Bing Crosby, it wa a massive hit for him on record and radio.

I still can't get over the shameless or obtuse (or both) Gershwin estate deciding to rename the show "The Gershwins' Porgy & Bess.," totally negating DuBose Heyward's significant contributions to the opera. And it wasn't just for the Diane Paulus abridged/altered Broadway production. When it was presented at the Met a few years ago, this odious new name was used.

The Houston Opera recording is probably the best of the full opera. Also the P & B albums done by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong and by Ray Charles & Cleo Laine

Here's a good cover of "It Ain't Necessarily So"

Any thoughts on the 1959 film?

I sang "My Man's Gone Now" when my lover John McCain died

[quote] "(The dialect was cringey at times.)"

I loves you, Porgy!

This is one of the most (and I mean it in every sense of the word) incredible things I've ever seen. I don't know how she does it, but not only does she not manage to embarrass herself, she somehow makes it seem right. It's the ballsy numbers like this that make me love her.

I saw the same boring show r5 describes.

I like this version better...

Bronski Beat

That was great, R49. Her phrasing is so good. She changed a few of the higher notes and--I think--they added some key changes in there. She was delightful. That medley was 13 minutes long!!

This clip is my favorite from the 1993 film by Trevor Nunn.