Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_MAR_APR | Page 34

PORGY AND BESS
known as “Goat Sammy,” who traveled
around the streets of Charleston on a
tiny goat-driven cart. Heyward also
drew upon the Gullah culture of the
sea islands off Charleston; here isolated
African-American settlements had
retained customs and language very close
to their African homelands.
At last in 1933, Gershwin felt ready
to embark on his operatic project with
Heyward. The first major piece composed
was the enchanting “Summertime,”
which Clara sings at the beginning of the
opera. The most intense period of work,
however, came during the summer of
1934 when Gershwin rented a cottage
near Heyward’s summer home on Folly
Island off Charleston and immersed
himself in local Gullah and black culture.
Gershwin was dazzled by the spirituals
and the Gullah tradition of “shouting”:
accompanying spirituals with complicated
rhythmic patterns beaten out by hands
and feet. Listening to black Holy Rollers
simultaneously chanting different prayers
to different rhythms inspired Gershwin’s
intricate six-part prayer sequence that
opens Act II’s Storm Scene. Back in New
York, George’s brother, Ira, joined the
creative team, writing many of the lyrics.
Gershwin and Heyward wanted a
black cast, and Gershwin insisted on fully
developed operatic voices for his music.
With opportunities for African-Americans
to receive classical training then so
limited, the nationwide search took
months. At Howard University, Gershwin
found Todd Duncan, a strapping six-foot
professor with a big, blazing baritone; here
was his ideal Porgy. Soprano Anne Brown,
the daughter of a Baltimore physician and
a 22-year-old student at Juilliard, wrote
Gershwin for an audition; though she had
no stage experience, he cast her as Bess for
her radiantly high notes and vulnerably
good looks.
Porgy and Bess opened at Broadway’s
Alvin Theater in a Theater Guild
production on October 10, 1935. The
audience loved the show, especially
Gershwin’s inspired music and the
powerful cast that sang it. But critics were
more reserved. They questioned what kind
of work Porgy and Bess was — musical,
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operetta or opera. Gershwin maintained
that it was an opera, and he had indeed
followed the operatic conventions of using
continuous music and casting the dialogue
largely in sung recitative.
African Americans also had criticisms.
They decried the show as a white
production, created, directed and
conducted by white men despite its black
cast. Some found the dialect language
demeaning and the depiction of African
Americans as ignorant, superstitious
and living on the shady side of the law
insulting. But over the decades, the
power and universality of Porgy and Bess
has largely won out. It has moved people
to tears all over the world. It has created
new stars—notably Leontyne Price
and William Warfield who played the
title characters in a production toured
by the State Department in the 1950s.
50 years after its premiere, it scored
the ultimate establishment coup when
the Metropolitan Opera gave it a new
production in 1985 under James Levine.
For many, it remains unchallenged as
the Great American Opera.
A Guide to the Drama
and Its Musical Highlights
Act I, Scene 1: After a brief orchestral
Prelude, the curtain opens on Catfish
Row. It is evening, and a jazz piano
plays in the background. Home from
work, the men of the Row have begun
a craps game. Clara, wife of Jake the
fisherman, sings a lullaby to her baby
(“Summertime”). Jake then takes the
baby and sings it a more cynical song
(“A woman is a sometime thing”). The
crippled Porgy joins the game (“Oh,
little stars”), as does the sinister stevedore
Crown, with his flashily dressed woman,
Bess, on his arm. Crown is drunk and
soon gets into a brawl with Robbins
(powerful, orchestral fugue), killing him
with a cotton hook. Crown flees, leaving
Bess behind; as the police arrive, Porgy
is the only one who will give her shelter.
Act I, Scene 2: Robbins’ body is laid out
in his wife Serena’s room with a saucer
on his chest to receive donations for his
burial; the chorus mourns him (“Gone,
Gone, Gone”). Porgy urges everyone to
be generous. Serena sings an anguished
lament (“My man’s gone now”). The
collection amounts to only $15, but the
undertaker promises to give Robbins a
decent burial.
Act II, Scene 1: It is a month later, and
the residents of Catfish Row are preparing
for a holiday boat trip and picnic on
Kittiwah Island. Jake and the other
fisherman are repairing their nets (“It take
a long pull to get there”). Bess and Porgy
have fallen in love, and he expresses his
newfound joy (“I got plenty o’ nuttin’”).
Bess is reluctant to leave Porgy behind for
the picnic, but Porgy urges her to enjoy
herself; they sing the famous love duet
“Bess, you is my woman now.” Dressed in
their Sunday best, the neighbors parade
off to the boat.
Act II, Scene 2: On Kittiwah Island,
the neighbors enjoy themselves to music
energized by African drums (“I ain’t got
no shame”). The bootlegger Sportin’ Life
regales them with the irreverent “It ain’t
necessarily so.” As the crowd leaves for
the boat, Crown, who’s been hiding on
the island, accosts Bess. Loyal to Porgy,
she struggles with him, but he seduces
her and drags her into the bushes.
Act II, Scene 3: A week later on Catfish
Row, Bess is lying in feverish delirium
after struggling back from Kittiwah.
Serena and Porgy pray for her, and she
regains consciousness. Though Porgy
knows she’s been with Crown, he forgives
her, and they renew their love in a
heartfelt duet “I loves you, Porgy.” Jake
and the fishermen are out at sea, and
Clara screams as the wind comes up and
the hurricane bell clangs.
Act II, Scene 4: The neighbors have
taken shelter from the hurricane in
Serena’s house. The scene opens with
six prayers sung together in the complex
style inspired by African-American
meetings Gershwin had witnessed.
Trembling with fear, the people are
astonished by the sudden arrival of the