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Gershwin Porgy and Bess Highlights Gershwin Porgy and Bess Highlights ANGEL BLUE · LESTER LYNCH · CHAUNCEY PACKER KEVIN SHORT · MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY CHOIR THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA · MARIN ALSOP George Gershwin (1898-1937) Act 2 Highlights from Porgy and Bess (1935) Scene 1: Catfish Row, a Month Later Lyrics by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin 7 I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ 3. 08 Libretto by DuBose Heyward 8 Lo’ Bess, Goin’ to Picnic? 3. 48 based on the play Porgy by Dorothy and DuBose Heyward 9 Bess, You Is My Woman Now 5. 22 10 Oh, I Can’t Sit Down 2. 17 11 Porgy, I Hates to Go 2. 04 Act 1 Scene 2: Kittiwah Island, Evening, the Same Day 1 Introduction 1. 03 12 It Ain’t Necessarily So 4. 05 Scene 1: Catfish Row, a Summer Evening 13 Hear What I Tell You 3. 10 14 What You Want wid Bess? 4. 08 2 Summertime 2. 39 3 A Woman Is a Sometime Thing 2. 17 Scene 3: Catfish Row, before Dawn, a Week Later Scene 2: Serena’s Room, the Following Night 15 Now de Time, oh Gawd — I Loves You, Porgy 7. 16 4 Where Is Brudder Robbins? He’s a Gone, Gone, Gone 5. 24 5 Overflow 1. 34 6 My Man’s Gone Now 4. 04 Act 3 Bess, Clara, Serena, Choir Soli Angel Blue, Soprano Porgy Lester Lynch, Baritone Scene 1: Catfish Row, the Next Night Sportin’ Life Chauncey Packer, Tenor Crown, Jake, Choir Soli Kevin Short, Bass-Baritone 16 Andantino dolente 1. 20 Maria, Choir Soli Alexandria Crichlow, Soprano 17 Clara, Clara — Jesus Is Walkin’ on de Water 2. 20 Mingo, Choir Soli Darrin Scott, Tenor Scene 2: Catfish Row, the Next Afternoon Morgan State University Choir Director: Eric Conway 18 Cheer Up, Sistuh 0. 52 19 There’s a Boat dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York 2. 25 The Philadelphia Orchestra 20 You Low Crawlin’ Hound! 1. 57 Concertmaster: David Kim Assistant Conductor: Lina González-Granados Scene 3: Catfish Row, a Week Later Conducted by Marin Alsop 21 Thank Gawd I’s Home Again! 3. 49 22 Oh Lawd, I’m on My Way 1. 43 Total playing time: 67. 01 Grand opera: the search for For decades, this gem of American opera Porgy and Bess was the result of a fast a distinct style that originated from the an American sound remained largely under-programmed in friendship that formed between Gershwin descendants of enslaved Africans who were major opera houses, having received a and Southern Renaissance author DuBose brought to the sea islands bordering South “First of all it is American, and I believe lackluster reception upon its premiere Heyward. Heyward was responsible for Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. that American music should be based in 1935. Numerous Broadway and the first iteration of the underlying story on American Material” international revivals, and a 1959 movie material, having published his novel Porgy With DuBose Heyward and Gershwin’s – George Gershwin adaptation did little to inspire interest in in 1925. Gershwin wrote Heyward in 1926, brother Ira working on the libretto and bringing this work to the stage. It would not expressing interest in collaborating on an lyrics, Gershwin was intent on staying be until the first commercial recording of opera adaptation of his novel. However, true to the nature and form of Heyward’s For more than 85 years, Gershwin’s the original unedited score in 1976, and the work on what would become Gershwin’s original novel, seeking only to heighten the self-proclaimed “Folk Opera” Porgy and Houston grand opera revival in the same opera was initially stalled for several emotional drama of the story. Gershwin Bess has delighted audiences with its year, that Porgy and Bess finally reached a years, due to the fact that Heyward’s set about composing his opera, sourcing immediately recognizable hit tunes, level of recognition that has only seemed wife, Dorothy, had already begun work his newly assimilated styles into a self- flashy and energetic orchestration, and to grow in scope over the decades. In on a staged adaption of his novel. styled “Folk Opera.” In a New York Times quintessential Americana feeling. From recent times, in light of social movements article in 1935, Gershwin explained his the opening glissando and lightning- that have swept across the U.S. and the It would not be until 1933 that DuBose characterization: “Porgy and Bess is a folk fast xylophone melody, audiences are world, Porgy and Bess has been used as Heyward and George Gershwin would begin tale. Its people naturally would sing folk transported across time to the Charleston a catalyst for bringing more diverse casts their work in earnest. In the summer of music. When I first began work on the waterfront tenement neighborhood of to the opera stage. It is truly considered 1934, at the author’s invitation, Gershwin music I decided against the use of original Catfish Row. The protagonists of this one of the most popular and enduring traveled to Folly Island in South Carolina, folk material because I wanted the music great American story, the easy-going and gems of American Grand Opera, and one hoping to absorb the authentic color to be all of one piece. Therefore I wrote my doting Porgy, and his loving but troubled of the most ambitious works of Gershwin’s and style of the music he hoped to write. own spirituals and folk songs. But they are soul mate Bess, take us on a complex and wide-ranging, if tragically short lifespan of He even attended local church services. still folk music — and therefore, being in multilayered journey of adoration, deceit, output. Gershwin was particularly enamored with operatic form, Porgy and Bess becomes a heartbreak, and hope of redemption. a genre of music known as Gullah Music, folk opera.” 8 9 In many ways, Gershwin’s writing in Porgy in songs they would have gone years ago.” integral role, acting not as window dressing Its roots are in the soil of the Negro people, and Bess is characteristic of the bedrock but active spectators to the action taking whom it interprets with humor, tragedy, ideology of America as a “melting pot.” At Gershwin uses his vocal writing to infuse place before them. penetrating characterizations, dramatic times his music is emblematic of European the humanity of his complex characters, power and sympathy.” It’s important to opera, likely a result of his intensive reflected in the demanding vocal lines. Over the years, Porgy and Bess has earned note that Porgy and Bess also represented training under the influential theorist and For example, Bess’s complicated nature is a wide range of emotions and reception. a surprising historic moment in the United composer Joseph Schillinger; at others, it directly portrayed through the strength Through the years of the Civil Rights and States — its premieres in Charleston, South echoes Tin Pan Alley songs and idioms of of “I Loves You, Porgy,” which requires Black Power movements, it was criticized Carolina and Washington, D.C. would be jazz and spirituals. The brilliance inherent the legato power emblematic of Manon as racist and playing heavily into racial the first desegregated opera performances in this score is his innate ability to merge in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. Porgy's stereotypes. Yet influential musicians such to be held in those cities. these seemingly unrelated styles into one dichotomy is emblematic of the darkness as Duke Ellington were enamored with cohesive work of art. Gershwin focused on of spirit of Tosca's Scarpia when he kills the music, and later analysis seemed to The success of Gershwin’s opera ultimately the medium of a “Jazz Opera'' because he Crown in Act Three, yet shows incredible embrace the idea that the opera belonged comes down to his ability to write a truly believed that unlike the briefer lifespan of tenderness when he nurses Bess back to as much to the black singers as it did to enrapturing work that draws the audience Broadway shows of his time, he wanted health. Serena’s “My Man’s Gone Now” its all-white authors. In fact, Ira Gershwin into an imaginary and idealized world, to see Porgy and Bess enjoy a more robust at the funeral of her husband in Act I stipulated that all U.S. productions be featuring a unique cast of singers who future. In the same 1935 Times article, he showcases the singer’s virtuosity and brings required to stage Porgy and Bess with an display every range of emotion and human wrote: “I chose the form I have used for on the chills of Musetta from Puccini’s La all-black cast. “This, Gershwin’s last serious complexity, all packaged in a product that Porgy and Bess because I believe that music Bohème. Sportin’ Life, a role that Gershwin work,” wrote David Ewen, “possesses that is catchy, entertaining, and moving all at lives only when it is in serious form. When originally imagined for Cab Calloway, richness, vitality and variety of melody, once. I wrote Rhapsody in Blue I took blues and must be a derisive, sarcastic minister in “It that vigor of rhythm, that spontaneity and put them in a larger and more serious form. Ain’t Necessarily So,” and a silver-tongued freshness we associate with Gershwin’s That was twelve years ago and Rhapsody seducer in the jazzy legato stylings of best music. Of all Gershwin’s serious works, in Blue is still pretty much alive, whereas if I “There’s a Boat dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New it is the only one to reveal compassion, had taken the same themes and put them York.” Even the chorus members play an humanity and a profound dramatic instinct.
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