Porgy and Bess

Gershwin, George

album cover

"Folk Opera" for the Ages

Like many a tunesmith associated with Tin Pan Alley and the heyday of Great American Song in the 1930s, George Gershwin (1898–1937) wished to be considered a "legitimate" composer. This piece, which stretched nearly four hours at its 1935 premiere, brought him that recognition. It's an all-stops-out opera (Gershwin described it as a "folk opera") filled with broad, quintessential Southern melodies, hymns of devotion, and jazz-tinged songs of yearning that swell to grand proportions. It's been hailed among the great works of the twentieth century, and reviled as racist (because some of its sharply drawn characters behave according to white stereotypes of African Americans during that time) by such eminent figures as Duke Ellington and Harry Belafonte.

Above dispute: the expansive, breathtakingly beautiful songs Gershwin used to tell the story, which is set in an impoverished community in Charleston, South Carolina. The Brooklyn-born composer and pianist visited the region several times while adapting DuBose Heyward's play Porgy, and spent time around Folly Beach, where the Gullah Negroes worked, lived, and worshipped. Those who know Gullah culture credit Gershwin with capturing its idiosyncratic speech patterns and vocal inflections.

The plot involves a crippled man (Porgy, sung here by Willard White) and his struggle to extract a young girl (Bess, sung by Cynthia Haymon) from the clutches of drug dealers and pimps. It's a story of unconditional devotion that unfolds through scenes of hardship and adversity. Even the minor characters are richly drawn, and Gershwin gives each tight emblematic songs, with memorable recurring melodies. Through these frameworks, a character's nuances emerge: The drug dealer Sportin' Life is a fairly marginal presence when he steps up to sing "It Ain't Necessarily So," one of many songs from the show to become a standard. As the song unfolds, we learn about his code of ethics, his thought process, and values. We get a "feel" for him that's borne out later.

This production, from the Glyndebourne Festival in 1988, relies on previous stagings, notably the Houston Grand Opera 1976 production that restored nearly thirty minutes of music cut in 1935. It has a team of smooth singers led by the exuberant conductor Sir Simon Rattle, who under-stands drama (note the terrorized rape scene on Kittiwah Island) and is attentive to the small touches Gershwin embedded within the orchestrations—even those who know the work well may discover new riches and oddities here.

Rattle encourages his soloists to savor Gershwin's graceful gliding arcs of melody, and why not? These pieces—"Summertime," "I Loves You Porgy," "My Man's Gone Now," "It Ain't Necessarily So," "A Woman Is a Sometime Thing," and on and on—are each towering accomplishments, gathering bits of local color and the heavy sigh of the blues into a deeply affecting and universal sound.

Genre: Opera
Released: 1989, EMI
Key Tracks: "Summertime," "I Loves You Porgy," "My Man's Gone Now," "It Ain't Necessarily So," "A Woman Is a Sometime Thing."
Another Interpretation: Miles Davis and Gil Evans: Porgy and Bess.
Next Stop: Ella Fitzgerald: Sings the Gershwin Songbook
After That: Duke Ellington: Sophisticated Ladies.
Book Pages: 307–308