   #copyright

Porgy and Bess

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Poetry & Opera

   Porgy and Bess is an opera with music by George Gershwin, libretto by
   DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and 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 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. Despite this
   success, 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.

Characters

     * Porgy, a cripple ( bass-baritone)
     * Bess, Crown's girl ( soprano)
     * Crown, a tough stevedore ( baritone)
     * Serena, Robbins' wife (soprano)
     * Clara, Jake's wife (soprano)
     * Maria, keeper of the cook-shop ( contralto)
     * Jake, a fisherman (baritone)
     * Sportin' Life, a dope peddler ( tenor)
     * Mingo (tenor)
     * Robbins, an inhabitant of Catfish Row (tenor)
     * Peter, the honeyman (tenor)
     * Frazier, a negro 'lawyer' (baritone)
     * Annie, ( mezzo-soprano)
     * Lily, Peter's wife (mezzo-soprano)
     * Strawberry woman (mezzo-soprano)
     * Jim, a cotton picker (baritone)
     * Undertaker (baritone)
     * Nelson (tenor)
     * Crab man (tenor)
     * Scipio, a small boy ( boy soprano)
     * Mr. Archdale, a white lawyer (spoken)
     * Detective (spoken)
     * Policeman (spoken)
     * Coroner (spoken)

   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

     * 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 II

     * 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 III

     * Scene 1 - Catfish Row, the next night.

   The chorus mourns Clara and Jake ("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 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 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 in the trio "Bess
   is gone." 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

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

   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 the Colonial Theatre in Boston on September 30, 1935 - the
   try-out for a work intended initially for Broadway where the opening
   took place at the Alvin Theatre in New York City on October 10, 1935 ].
   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 and Alexander Smallens conducted.

   After the Broadway run, 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 in to the demands, resulting in the first
   integrated performance of any show at National Theatre.

   This original production included:
     * Todd Duncan as Porgy
     * Anne Brown as Bess
     * John W. Bubbles as Sportin' Life
     * Warren Coleman as Crown
     * Henry Davis as Robbins
     * Ruby Elzy as Serena, Robbins' wife
     * Abbie Mitchell as Clara
     * Edward Matthews as Jake, Clara's husband
     * Helen Dowdy as the Strawberry Woman
     * J. Rosamond Johnson as the lawyer
     * Georgette Harvey as Maria
     * The Eva Jessye Choir, led by Eva Jessye

   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 theatre Americans were used to hearing from Gershwin. The
   orchestra was reduced, the cast was halved, and many recitatives were
   reduced to spoken dialog.

   After trying out her concepts at a professional stock theatre in
   Maplewood, New Jersey in September 1941, the show opened at the
   Majestic Theatre on Broadway in January 1942. 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.

   Other all-white or mostly-white productions in Europe took place in
   Zurich in 1945 and 1950, and Copenhagen 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 condensed the opera into two acts. This version
   restored the work to a more operatic form, and Porgy and Bess was
   warmly received through Europe. The London premiere took place on
   October 9, 1952 at the Stoll Theatre, where it remained until February
   10, 1953.

   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 theatre 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 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. 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. These productions
   were also based on the "complete score," without incorporating
   Gershwin's revisions. 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. On
   February 24-25, 2006, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, under the
   direction of John Mauceri, gave a concert performance at the Tennessee
   Performing Arts Centre that restored the cuts made by Gershwin himself
   for the New York premiere. In 2000 and 2002 there was a revival
   directed by Tazewell Thompson at New York City Opera.

World Premiere of Porgy and Bess the Musical

   On November 9th at the Savoy Theatre (London) Trevor Nunn opened
   Gershwins classic, this time in the form of a musical. Nunn, who had
   previously directed the show as an Opera at the Glyndebourne Festival
   and as a movie with Willard White, adapted and directed the 4 four and
   a half hour Opera into it's new form. Working with the Gershwin estate,
   Nunn used dialogue from the original novel and subsequent Broadway
   stage play to replace the restive with naturalistic scenes. Gareth
   Valentine provided the musical adaption. This original production of
   the Musical version included:
     * Clarke Peters as Porgy
     * Nicola Hughes as Bess
     * O-T Fagbenle as Sportin' Life
     * Cornel S. John as Crown

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." Duke Ellington stated "the times
   are here to debunk Gershwin's lampblack Negroisms." 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 Theatre 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.

   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.

   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." 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."

   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."

   Over time, however, the opera gained acceptance from the opera
   community and some (though not all) 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." 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, which he felt had preserved some African musical
   traditions. This research added to the authenticity of his work.

   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
   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 Edward Jablonsky has claimed that the melody to "It
   Ain't Necessarily So" was taken from the Haftarah blessing, and others
   have attributed it to the Torah blessing. 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.

   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:
   ( Listen)

   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:
   ( Listen)

   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:
   ( Listen)

   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:
   ( Listen)

   This contrast represents Sportin' Life's successful corruption of
   Bess's love for Porgy.

Recordings

Excerpts

   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 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 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. Robert McFerrin was the singing voice of Porgy, and
   Adele Addison the singing voice of Bess. The white singer Loulie Jean
   Norman was the singing voice of Clara (portrayed onscreen by Diahann
   Carroll), and Inez Matthews the singing voice of Serena (portrayed
   onscreen by Ruth Attaway).

   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.

Complete recordings

   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 based on Gershwin's original
   score, restoring the material cut by Gershwin during rehearsals for the
   New York premiere in 1935, 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. A subsequent
   complete recording of the opera by the Houston Grand Opera in 1977 and
   the Glyndebourne album in 1989 are also based on the complete original
   score, without Gershwin's cuts. The latest (2006) recording of the
   opera made by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra under John Mauceri in
   2006 is the first to observe Gershwin's cuts and thus present the opera
   as it was heard in New York in 1935.

Adaptations

Film and television

   A 1959 film version was produced in 70 mm Todd-AO by Samuel 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 favour of director Otto Preminger for daring to suggest that
   the film be made on location in South 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.
   Robert McFerrin dubbed the songs for Sidney Poitier's Porgy and Adele
   Addison for Dorothy Dandridge's Bess. Ruth Attaway's Serena and Diahann
   Carroll's Clara were also overdubbed. Although Ms. Dandridge and Ms.
   Carroll were singers, their voices were 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 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 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 Centre. 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
   director Tazewell Thompson and was hosted by Beverly Sills.

   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:
     * " 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 Aint 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 3

   Some of the more celebrated renditions of these songs include Sarah
   Vaughan's "It Ain't Necessarily So" and the versions of of "Summertime"
   recorded by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and
   Miles Davis. Frank Sinatra also recorded "Summertime". Janis Joplin
   recorded a Blues rock version of "Summertime" with Big 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
   for Chess 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. 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" 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.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porgy_and_Bess"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
