- Person
- George Gershwin
- Lived
- 1898–1937
- Field
- Music
- From
- American
The story
George Gershwin, the son of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, read DuBose Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy in 1926 and proposed turning it into an opera. The story is set among the African American residents of Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, and follows Porgy, a disabled beggar, as he tries to rescue Bess from her violent lover and a drug dealer. In 1933 Gershwin and Heyward signed a contract with the Theatre Guild to write it.
In the summer of 1934 Gershwin stayed on Folly Island near Charleston at Heyward's invitation, getting a feel for the place and its music. He drew inspiration from the Gullah community of nearby James Island, which he felt had preserved African musical traditions. He chose not to borrow existing folk songs, writing his own spirituals and songs instead so that the music would be all of one piece, and he called the result a folk opera. Heyward wrote the libretto and most of the lyrics, including Summertime, while Ira Gershwin wrote others, such as It Ain't Necessarily So.
Porgy and Bess opened in Boston on 30 September 1935 and on Broadway on 10 October. It was performed by a cast of classically trained African American singers, a daring choice at a time when such singers had few opportunities on major stages. Anne Brown, a 20-year-old Juilliard student, so impressed Gershwin that he enlarged the role of Bess for her. On tour in Washington in 1936, the cast, led by Todd Duncan, protested segregation at the National Theatre, and management gave in, producing the venue's first integrated audience.
Critics could not decide whether it was an opera or an ambitious Broadway musical. The theatre historian Robert Kimball said it crossed the barriers. Its first run was a commercial disappointment, but later productions toured the world, including La Scala in 1955. A 1976 Houston Grand Opera staging restored the complete score and won it acceptance as a true opera, and the Metropolitan Opera staged it in 1985 and again in 2019, when its recording won a Grammy.
It is now one of the best known and most frequently performed operas. Summertime has been recorded by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, among many others.
Why it matters
Porgy and Bess created a major operatic showcase for Black singers and gave the world some of its most enduring songs.
About George Gershwin
Composer of "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Porgy and Bess"; bridged jazz and classical, defining American 20th-century music.
More about George Gershwin
- George Gershwin's An American in Paris painted a cityGeorge Gershwin wrote his tone poem An American in Paris in 1928 after a stay in Paris, where Nadia Boulanger and Maurice Ravel declined to teach him for fear of spoiling his style.
- George Gershwin's Concerto in F joined the classical canonGeorge Gershwin followed Rhapsody in Blue with his Piano Concerto in F in 1925, a work that has become an established part of the classical repertoire.
- Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue brought jazz to concert hallsWritten in about five weeks, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue premiered in New York on 12 February 1924 and brought jazz into the concert hall.
Sources
- George Gershwin Wikipedia
- Porgy and Bess Wikipedia
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