[“Porgy
and Bess”:
Excerpts from the New York City Opera’s version of “Porgy and
Bess,” produced by Sherwin M. Goldman. Includes “Summertime,”
“Bess, You Is My Woman,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and
others.]
By
Joe Nocera
January 21, 2012
“WHEN George Gershwin's 'Porgy
and Bess' — arguably the most important piece of American music
written in the 20th century — first opened on Broadway in 1935, the
opera's libretto was littered with a word now shunned as an antiblack
slur. The African-American residents of Catfish Row, the only
slightly imaginary block in Charleston, S.C., where the opera is set,
used it liberally, and so of course did the white characters during
their occasional menacing visits.
“None of the
opera’s early critics seemed to notice; whether black reviewer or
white, they primarily critiqued 'Porgy and Bess' as a theatrical
experience, focusing in particular on the highly original way
Gershwin fused blues tonalities, spirituals and other elements of
African-American music into a full-length opera."
“'Porgy and Bess'
has always struck me as something of a miracle. A powerful,
empathetic portrayal of poor black city dwellers in the South, it was
written by three white men, two of whom had spent little time in the
South. The one Southerner, Heyward, was a Charleston insurance
salesman turned poet who had written a novel, 'Porgy,' the
inspiration for which had come from a news story about a crippled
beggar he used to see around town. Heyward spent years pushing
Gershwin to collaborate on an opera; once Gershwin agreed, Heyward
mailed him lyrics — the only ones he ever wrote in his life —
that are some of the most sublime ever written. Stephen Sondheim
described them as 'the most beautiful and powerful in our musical
theater history.'
“'Porgy and Bess'
was also Gershwin’s first opera — and his last; he was dead
within two years, killed by a brain tumor at the age of 38.”
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