Gershwin's Porgy and Bess
One Score One Chicago
Bobby McFerrin, Conductor
Nicole Cabell, Soprano
Brian Stokes Mitchell, Baritone
Stephen Salters, Baritone
Lauren Michelle, Soprano
Gwendolyn Brown, Contralto
Vocality, [Josephine Lee, Chorus Director]
The Drummers of Ko-Thi Dance Company
Tickets: $75/25
Lawn: $15
The Best of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess
Jasbo Brown Blues
A Woman Is a Sometime Thing
Gone, Gone, Gone / Overflow
My Man's Gone Now
It Take a Long Pull to Get There
I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'
Buzzard Song
Bess, You Is My Woman Now
Oh, I Can't Sit Down
Leavin' for the Promise' Lan'
I Ain' Got No Shame
What You Want Wid Bess?
Strawberry Woman / Crab Man
I Loves You, Porgy
Oh, Heav'nly Father
Oh, De Lawd Shake De Heavens
A Red-Headed Woman
Clara, Clara
There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York
Oh, Bess, Oh Where's My Bess
Oh Lawd, I'm On My Way
Click to View Program Notes
Instrumentation of the Opera Carolina version to come
Few works merit immediate "classic" status, but the folk opera Porgy and Bess is surely one. In it, Gershwin tore down the barriers between American musical theater and opera, popular and formal musical styles, social classes, and races. The composer wrote, "Because Porgy and Bess deals with Negro life in America it brings to the operatic form elements that have never appeared in opera, and I have adapted my method to utilize the drama, the humor, the superstition, the religious fervor, the dancing and the irrepressible high spirits of the race. If, in doing this, I have created a new form, which combines opera with theater, this new form has come quite naturally out of the material."
Gershwin had long dreamed of composing a full-scale opera on an ethnic theme. His Blue Monday, Opera Ala Afro-American (revived as 135th Street) was a one-act jazz opera for George White's Scandals of 1922 revue. The serious treatment of the black characters and the depressing ending proved too severe for the vaudeville audience, and White removed Blue Monday after only one performance. In 1928 financier and opera lover Otto Kahn invited Gershwin to compose an opera, Dybbuk, for the Metropolitan Opera. Dybbuk was a Yiddish play by S.A. Ansky (pseudonym for Solomon Rappaport) based on Central European Jewish folklore. Unfortunately, musical rights had been granted to the Italian composer Lodovico Rocca for an opera at La Scala, so the offer from the Met had to be withdrawn.
Unfazed, Gershwin set his sights on the bestselling novel Porgy by Southern writer DuBose Heyward. Heyward portrayed life among the Gullah blacks of Charleston, SC. ("Gullah" is dialect for Angola, the African nation from which the blacks were taken as slaves.) The basis of Heyward's novel was a series of Charleston newspaper reports about the cripple Samuel Smalls, who was drawn by a goat through the impoverished Cabbage Row district on a cart. Heyward initially named his tragic hero Porgo (eventually changing it to Porgy) and changed the setting slightly to the fictitious Catfish Row.
Realizing the dramatic qualities of Porgy, Heyward's wife Dorothy adapted the novel to the stage. The play, produced by the Theatre Guild, opened on October 10, 1927. Additional offers for a motion picture and an opera, starring Al Jolson, were proposed to Heyward, but neither materialized. The final transformation of his novel was Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. Heyward wrote the libretto, and the lyrics were by Heyward and Ira Gershwin, the composer's brother.
After a series of delays, Gershwin threw himself whole-heartedly into the project. He spent several weeks during June and July 1934 in a crude cottage on Folly Island, outside Charleston, among the Gullahs, immersing himself in their dialect and their spirituals, even attending a prayer meeting. Heyward wrote, "The Gullah Negro prides himself on what he calls 'shouting.' This is a complicated rhythmic pattern beaten out by feet and hands as an accompaniment to the spirituals, and is indubitably an African survival. I shall never forget the night when, at a Negro meeting on a remote sea-island, George started 'shouting' with them. And eventually, to their huge delight, stole the show from their champion 'shouter.' I think that he is probably the only white man in America who could have done it."
Gershwin finished orchestrating his folk opera on September 2, 1935, eight days before the tryout at Boston's Colonial Theatre. An abridged Porgy and Bess opened at New York's Alvin Theatre on October 10, 1935. This Theatre Guild production was directed by Rouben Mamoulian and conducted by Alexander Smallens. The run of 124 performances was disappointingly short for a musical, but quite impressive for an opera. Critical response was mixed.
Gershwin derived an orchestral suite from the opera, titled Catfish Row (not the more widely known Symphonic Picture by Robert Russell Bennett), including some music excised from the score after the Boston tryout, in 1935-6. He compressed several vocal and instrumental selections into this five-movement suite: Summertime, Porgy Sings ("I Got Plenty o' Nuthin'" and "Bess, You Is My Woman Now"), Fugue (the death of Crown), Hurricane and Good Mornin' Sistuh! ("Children's Song," "Sure to Go to Heaven" and "Oh Lawd, I'm on My Way"). He conducted the suite at Ravinia during his 1936 appearance, but the score disappeared around the time of his death the following year, eventually being rediscovered by Ira Gershwin's secretary nearly a quarter century later.
-Program notes © 2015 Todd E. Sullivan
LONG SYNOPSIS
After a frenzied orchestral introduction, the curtain rises on a summer evening in Catfish Alley, a former mansion on the waterfront of Charleston, South Carolina now occupied by fishermen, stevedores and other working-class people. The only light shines from the room of Jasbo Brown, who plays a hypnotic piano blues (Jasbo Brown Blues) as couples dance and sing in the street. Clara rocks her baby son-Jake is the boy's father-and sings a tender lullaby ("Summertime"), accompanied by a chorus of women. Several men "roll dem bones" in a craps game. Robbins joins the gambling against the protests of his wife, Serena. Jake takes the boy from Clara's arms and sings a cynical warning ("A Woman Is a Sometime Thing"). Peter, the honey man, pedals his wares as Porgy enters on a goat cart. The crap-shooters decide to wait for the liquor-loving stevedore Crown. They notice that Porgy has grown "soft" on Crown's woman, Bess. Crown takes some "happy dust" from the dope-peddler Sportin' Life-a volatile mixture with alcohol. An argument with Robbins ensues, and Crown kills him with a cotton hook. The murderer escapes, and Sportin' Life attempts to lure Bess to New York. She takes refuge in Porgy's room.
A crowd of mourners gathers in Serena's room around the lifeless body of her husband ("Gone, Gone, Gone"), dropping contributions for the funeral into a saucer placed on his chest. The police detective arrives to investigate. He tells Serena that, unless enough money is raised for a proper burial by the next day, the board of health will give the body to a medical student. Porgy denies any knowledge of the crime, and the policeman arrests the honey man as a witness. Serena sings her own lament ("My Man's Gone Now"). The undertaker agrees to bury Robbins for a sum below his usual fee. Bess urges all to board the train at the station, headed for the Promised Land.
Jake and the other fisherman gather on the docks in the morning to repair their nets ("It Take a Long Pull to Get There"). Annie reminds the men of the picnic. In his window, Porgy sings a joyous banjo song ("I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'"). Sportin' Life attempts to peddle more "happy dust," but Maria chases him away. Lawyer Frazier arrives looking for Porgy. Frazier asks Porgy if that is Crown's Bess in his room, but he responds that she is "Porgy's Bess." Porgy offers to buy her divorce from Crown, but discovers they were never married. Mr. Archdale, a white lawyer, arrives in the courtyard to bail out Peter, whose family once belonged to the Archdales. A buzzard hovers overhead (an evil omen), but the rejuvenated Porgy tells him to keep on flying. Sportin' Life tries again to interest Bess in "happy dust." Porgy seizes Sportin' Life's arm and threatens to break his neck the next time he bothers Bess. Everyone prepares for the picnic, leaving Porgy and Bess alone to sing of love ("Bess, You Is My Woman Now"). Maria convinces Bess to attend the picnic on Kittiwah Island, without Porgy. The excited crowd readies to depart ("Oh, I Can't Sit Down").
The people engage in all manners of carefree activity on Kittiwah Island-singing, dancing, overeating and drinking ("I Ain' Got No Shame"). Sportin' Life preaches a blasphemous sermon ("It Ain't Necessarily So"). Serena interrupts, calling them all sinners. A whistle summons everyone to the boats. Bess suddenly encounters Crown, who asks for "happy dust." Bess tells him that she is "livin' decent" with Porgy. Crown becomes more insistent, claiming "I got's a woman an' dat's you." Bess wonders about his real intentions ("What You Want Wid Bess?"). A passionate kiss from Crown, and Bess agrees to remain on the island.
A church bell tolls morning in Catfish Row several days later. Jake and his fishermen companions prepare their boat, the Sea Gull. Pete returns from jail. From Porgy's room drifts the delirious voice of Bess, who has been sick for more than a week. Serena prays to "Doctor Jesus" for Bess, as the others join. Street vendors appear on Catfish Row (Strawberry Woman/Crab Man). Bess's fever breaks, and she calls for Porgy, who knows she's been with Crown. Though no longer worthy of Porgy, Bess asks to stay ("I Loves You, Porgy"). Clara worries about Jake sailing on the blackened sea. Suddenly, the ominous hurricane bell tolls.
As the storm rages outside, frightened residents of Catfish Row huddle in Serena's room, raising their voices in prayer ("Oh, Hev'nly Father [Lawd, hab mercy]"). Lightning flashes and thunder claps. Clara again comforts her baby boy with a lullaby. There is a knock on the door, and Peter thinks it is death. Someone opens the door-Crown has come for Bess ("A Red-Headed Woman"). Jake's overturned boat appears in the river. Clara gives her baby to Bess and rushes out into the storm. Crown mocks Porgy and the other men, calling them cowards, and runs after Clara. He will come back for Bess.
It is night, and the storm has passed. The fishermen widows mourn their husbands ("Clara, Clara"). Sportin' Life ridicules them, because there are so many other men interested in good-looking women. In the window, Bess sings a lullaby ("Summertime") to Clara's baby. Crown enters the courtyard and sneaks toward Porgy's room. As he passes the window, Porgy plunges a knife into his back, then strangles him. Porgy laughs and tells Bess she has a man now-"You got Porgy!"
A detective arrives in Catfish Row to interrogate Serena, suspecting that Crown was murdered to avenge her husband. The coroner asks Porgy to identify the body. When he refuses, police officers drag the frightened man away. Sportin' Life tells Bess that Porgy will be arrested and locked up for life. To cheer her, Sportin' Life offer some "happy dust." Bess loses will-power and takes the dope. Sportin' Life persuades her to join him in the big city, where they will live the high-life together ("There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York").
Another week has passed on Catfish Row. Porgy returns from jail, convicted of contempt of court for refusing to view Crown's body. Happily home again, Porgy is surprised to find Serena holding Clara's baby. When he asks for Bess ("Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess"), the others break the sad news. Thinking Porgy gone forever, Bess has left with Sportin' Life. Porgy asks how far is New York and to which direction. His friends answer-a thousand miles to the north. Mounting his goat cart, Porgy sets off after Bess ("Oh Lawd, I'm on My Way").
Program notes © Todd E. Sullivan 2015
Tonight's concert features a video screen on the lawn. View the full listing.
Featured Sponsor:
The Negaunee Foundation
Porgy and Bess Consortium