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Porgy and Bess: Is It Worth It to Perform?

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Porgy and Bess: Is It Worth It to Perform?

In 1925, an opera portraying love, tragedy, and conmen was published. Needless to say, it was a major success in opera performance as it has been celebrated as “one of the most celebrated American operas,” running for only 124 performances, it has made lasting impact on American music for it’s iconic music such as  “Summertime”, and for it’s complex storyline. Although, the complex storyline based on a real man in the 1920s, Samuel Smalls, Can often be seen as a negative depiction of African-American culter and experiences. Although, black-owned newspapers and news outlets at the time raved heavily for the representation and storytelling depicted on the Broadway Stage. 

In an analysis of “Porgy Bess” done by Lawrence Starr, Starr argues that “Porgy and Bess” it is difficult to say that the intention of creating the musical was supposed to be a means of mocking and critcizim of the African American community, rather a means of telling a story based off of the novel “Porgy” by DuBose Heyward. Starr states in his article that this is important considering that there were never any outward statements about the oper being solely about “the Black People” but more an opera of “Black People”. This argument was further emphasized through Starr’s study of Bizet’s “Carmen” in which Bizet had very opinionated views on the “gypsies” in the musical” (pg. 26) Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that one of the most infamous American Operas is about African American characters complicated love stories, gambling, cheating, killing, and disability. This can also become complicated considering that the story and the the opera were both written through the lens of a white man, which can, raise questions and flags of appropriation. 

Although, at the time of it’s release and for some time after it’s debut on Broadway, Black owned press seemed to take a liking toward the opera and what it had done for black artists in the cast With the cast being an entirely black cast, this gave opportunities to black artists in which there would have not been an opportunity otherwise. In an article done by the Chicago Defender in 1942, Ethyl B. Wise focused on the children that were able to become involved within the musical as well as the amount of fun opportunities for the children within the musical. Wise states in the article, “Don’t you think it is grand that the actors including the children are all your people.” Although, this means we also need to take into consideration, (which Wise states in the article) that the children that are in the musical are also being exposed to a very mature  storyline, which raised concerns while the parents were on the road with their children. 

Although that the musical has been analyzed in both through negative connotations such as the the appropriation and black culture and the undermining nature of their life, the opera also offered plentiful opportunities for African-American performers in a time whic African-American performers were not seen in the limelight. 

 

Work Cited

 

WISE, ETHYL B. “Let’s Go Backstage with Eight Little Stars in ‘Porgy and Bess’: BILLIKENS HOLD SPOTLIGHT IN ‘PORGY AND BESS’.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Dec 05, 1942. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/lets-go-backstage-with-eight-little-stars-porgy/docview/492701821/se-2. 

 

Noonan, Marie Ellen. 2002. ““Porgy and Bess” and the American Racial Imaginary, 1925–1985.” Order No. 3048850, New York University. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/porgy-bess-american-racial-imaginary-1925-1985/docview/305540446/se-2. 

Starr, Lawrence. “Toward a Reevaluation of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.” American Music 2, no. 2 (1984): 25–37. https://doi.org/10.2307/3051656.

Porgy and Bess: Controversy and Slow Progress

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Controversy

First, a short history of Porgy and Bess.

The original “Highlights from Porgy and Bess” album, featuring cover art entirely at odds with the featured vocalists, white Met Opera stars Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson.

In fall 1935, the galleries of Carnegie Hall rang for over four hours (including two intermissions) with the music of George Gershwin and the lyrics of DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. The private concert performance was of a new project, a grand experiment combining jazz, blues, spirituals, arias, and recitatives in a work that Gershwin described as a “folk opera,” Porgy and Bess, based on the novel Porgy by Heyward. The show became problematic for many reasons: though technically an opera featuring trained opera singers, it played according to Broadway’s schedule; the composer Gershwin had never written anything of such magnitude; while the production featured an all-black cast telling an African-American story, the author/librettist Heyward was white; the entire production crew from the director down to the stagehands to the violinists in the pit was white. In fact, the “official cast album” was recorded just days after the opera’s Broadway opening. It featured not the show’s original African-American leads, Todd Duncan and Anne Brown, as the titular Porgy and Bess, but white Metropolitan Opera stars Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson, who sat in on the last few rehearsals before opening night to learn the music. Producers felt the album would be more palatable to wide audiences and therefore sell better. (Sidebar: black performers were not allowed at the Met. Duncan and Brown did finally collaborate on a Porgy and Bess album in 1940/42.)

The original Catfish Row as seen at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre) in 1935. Photo from the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Controversy continued to surround the show: the performers protested the racial segregation at their Washington, D.C., venue, the National Theatre. Thanks especially to the efforts of Todd Duncan (Porgy), Porgy and Bess played to the National Theatre’s first integrated audience. Many more stories could be told.

Let’s fast-forward a decade to 1943, when Warner Brothers was hard at work on their fictionalized biopic of George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue. Like most biopics, the storyline stretched the truth, creating two fictional romances for George, and served more as an homage to Gershwin than an accurate portrayal of his life, allowing the opportunity for full performances of Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, “I Got Rhythm,” “Swanee,” and many more Gershwin hits.

Slow Progress

One of those other hits was “Summertime.” Judging by producers’ earlier resistance to recording an African-American Bess, one might expect the producers to opt again for a white star. But they did not ask Helen Jepson to sing. They called in Anne Brown, the original Bess, to reprise her role.

But progress seems to be a slow journey. As Alyce Key relates in an article for the Los Angeles Tribune in 1943 (this third incarnation of the paper was an African-American paper started by Almena Lomax praised for its fearless reporting), Miss Brown’s appearance in Hollywood was “shrouded in . . . more secrecy” than the WWII meetings of FDR and Churchill in Tehran, Potsdam, and Yalta:

Alyce Key’s article from the Los Angeles Tribune, September 6, 1943.

Fun fact: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $10,000 in 1943 is equal to $135,677.46 for one song. For comparison, Jennifer Lawrence got $500,000 for starring in The Hunger Games. The whole movie. $10,000 in 1943 was–and is–a lot of money for 3:40 of screen time.

As Alyce Key points out, people care. Gershwin cared enough to spend almost a decade working on Porgy and Bess. Todd Duncan cared enough to protest segregation at the National Theatre. The producers of Rhapsody in Blue cared enough to give Anne Brown a generous salary, but not enough to announce her involvement.

Progress, but slow progress. Maybe we just don’t care enough.

Hop on over to YouTube to check out Anne Brown’s reenacted performance of “Summertime”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxGMWfC7tm8.

“Key Notes by Alyce Key.” Los Angeles Tribune, Sep 6, 1943. America’s Historical Newspapers, SQN: 12A55C9DAF0E8A10.

Schwartz, Charles. Gershwin: His Life and Music. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1973.