npr on porgy

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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4951238

70 Years of Gerswhin's Porgy and Bess
from Day to Day, October 10 2005
by Karen Grigsby Bates

On this day in 1935, Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin's opera about black life in the South Carolina town of Charleston at the turn of the century, made its Broadway debut.
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, based on DuBose Hayward's successful novel of the same title, tells the story of poor, crippled Porgy and beautiful Bess, who runs away from the fast life to find sanctuary with Porgy and the residents of Catfish Row.

From the very beginning, it was considered another American classic by the composer of "Rhapsody in Blue" — even if critics couldn't quite figure out how to evaluate it. Was it opera, or was it simply an ambitious Broadway musical?

"It crossed the barriers," says theater historian Robert Kimball. "It wasn't a musical work per se, and it wasn't a drama per se — it elicited response from both music and drama critics. But the work has sort of always been outside category."

Borrowing minor chords from his Jewish heritage, call-and-response from black churches he'd visited and dashes of jazz, Gershwin's new music was completely original and very American. It was a commercial failure in its first run on Broadway — but despite that rocky start, Porgy and Bess went on to become one of the most-performed works in theater history.

musical notes

Please post comments with "musical terms" that you find of interest (include definitions, if you've gone that far and note which source you've taken the term from). These are the sources we have in our "common" library so far:

• Blog comments to Porgy and Bess posting on listening to Gershwin
• "Exotic Richness of Negro Music and Color of Charleston, S.C., Admirably Conveyed in Score of Catfish Row Tragedy" by Olin Downes (New York Times October 11, 1935)
• "Dramatic Values of Community Legend Gloriouosly Transposed in New Form with Fine Regard for Its Verities" by Brooks Atkinson (New York Times October 11, 1935)
• "Rhapsody in Catfish Row" by George Gershwin (New York Times October 20, 1935)
• "Porgy and Bess--A Folk Opera (a review)" by Hall Johnson (link on blog)
• "The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess" by James Standifer (link on blog)
• Grove Music Online entry on George Gershwin
• Encyclopedia Britannica Article on George Gershwin
• your JSTOR/MLA/American History secondary source article (and further research perusals)
• List of Musical terms (link on blog, Alice Crawford-Berghof)
• Opera Terms (link on blog)
• Lecture Notes (2/27--see info on gospels/shouts, in particular)

listening to Gershwin

Ella Fitzgerald sings Summertime in Berlin 1968: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkOuLZ2zcY0>.

James Standifer lists the mixture of musical elements in Porgy and Bess: folk (blues, spirituals, gospel); popular (blues, jazz, Tin Pan Alley); classical (the recitatives, the use of the academic fugue and canonic techniques, the aria, the leitmotif). Post comments here about your experiences listening to Porgy and Bess--include difficulties, simple observations, questions, and the things you think you're hearing.

being porgy

Todd Duncan and Anne Brown starred in the original production of Porgy and Bess. poster from original production, 1935. Metropolitan Opera. James Standifer writes, "Gershwin found casting difficult. The Porgy and Bess score required trained voices that could handle operatic content and jazz rhytms and tones. He invited Todd Duncan to his apartment to audition for the role of Porgy. After Duncan sang exactly twelve bars of lungi dal caro bene, Gershwin asked him "Will you be my Porgy?" At a later meeting with Duncan, George and Ira Gershwin went through almost the entire score. Duncan remembers, "I knew it would cause controversy among my people because of its representation of black life and music. But Gershwin had sold me on it right then and there!"

Gershwin specified in his will that with the exception of a few white characters--who have no singing parts--the cast for Porgy and Bess should consist only of African Americans. What do you think about the issues of racism surrounding the play? If you were producing a revival today, would you want to propose a "color-blind casting"?

folk operatics

Why did Gershwin call Porgy and Bess a folk opera? What are his various musical influences and how do you see these relating to his notion of this "folk opera"? Where do you or can you hear these various musical influences in the music of Porgy and Bess? What do Atkinson, Downes, or any of the other critics contribute to this discussion of the genre of Porgy and Bess (and why does it matter)? Finally, if Porgy and Bess is a folk opera, what is a folk opera?

picture: George Gershwin, DuBose Hayward, and Ira Gershwin. The brilliant trio behind Porgy and Bess. Photo source: The Robert A. Wachsman Collection. The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research InstituteThe Ohio State University. 1934?

death of the... author

In his essay, "The Death of the Author," Roland Barthes describes the written text as that which begins when the "voice loses its origin (142)" or the "author enters into his own death (142)." How could this written text be similar (or dissimilar) to a musical text? Our example of a musical text is Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Does Barthes give us any ways of thinking about the text that might help us with the difficulty of "listening" to music as readers?

Barthes replaces the concept of the author with the concept of the "scriptor," who is "born simultaneously with the text" (145). Barthes says that because this process is simulateous, the writing is not a "depiction," but is rather a "performative" (145). We talked last week with the film group about how the "performative" nature of Grease was different from the reality of Saving Private Ryan. Does Barthes describe a similar difference? Can we consider Gershwin as a "scriptor"--i.e. someone who deals with a text as a "tissue of quotations (147)," something "drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation (148)"?

Barthes, however, goes further than simply changing the name and function of the author to the scriptor. What does he do? In what sense does the author become the "listener"? What does Barthes mean when he writes, in the very last sentence, that "the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author (148)"?

Picture: GERSHWIN, George 1898-1937. I Got Plenty O' Nuttin', with the autograph signature of the composer. J & J Lubrano Music Antiquarians.
The Theatre Guild presents Porgy and Bess, music by George Gershwin libretto by DuBose Heyward lyrics by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin production directed by Rouben Mamoulian. New York: Gershwin Publishing Corp. [PN G-8-6] [c1935]. [i] (title), pp. 2-7 music, [i] publisher's catalogue of "Songs published separately from the American folk opera Porgy and Bess," including, in addition to the present song, "Bess You Is My Woman," "A Woman Is A Sometime Thing," It Ain't Necessarily So" and "My Man's Gone Now." Copyright in the name of the composer. Inscribed in blue ink to head of title-page: "For Alexander Lindley - With admiration and warm greetings. George Gershwin July 1936 (check day)" [a year to the month before the composer's untimely death at the age of 39]. Very slightly worn and creased; creased at central fold; small edge tears.
"The idea of writing a full-length opera based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy, about life among the black inhabitants of 'Catfish Row' in Charleston, South Carolina, first occurred to Gershwin when he read the book in 1926. Heyward's wife Dorothy had later helped him turn Porgy into a successful play, and Heyward had been approached by Al Jolson, who hoped to use the story for a musical show in which he would play the lead in blackface. This plan was rejected, however, and in October 1933 Heyward and the Gershwin brothers signed a contract with the Theatre Guild in New York, the same organization that had produced Porgy on stage. Gershwin began the score in February 1934... During much of the summer of 1934 he stayed in South Carolina, composing and absorbing the local atmosphere... By early 1935 the composition was finished, and Gershwin spent the next several months orchestrating." Richard Crawford in Grove online.

Item Id:17110 Cost: $4,250.00