Porgy And Bess Full __FULL__ Orchestral Score Pdf Download

[Tamela Mckane]

On September 2, 1935, George Gershwin signed his name to the completed orchestral score of the opera, Porgy and Bess. The composer called the 700-page score his masterpiece and never ceased to marvel that he had created it. Many critics consider Porgy and Bess to be the first and finest American opera.

The GershwinsÕ Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin Kenneth Kiesler Conductor University Symphony Orchestra Kenneth Kiesler / Music Director U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance Chamber Choir Jerry Blackstone / Conductor Willis Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale Willis Patterson / Conductor Morris Robinson / Porgy
Talise Trevigne / Bess
Norman Garrett / Crown
Chauncey Packer / Sporting Life
Janai Brugger / Clara
Reginald Smith, Jr. / Jake
Karen Slack / Serena
Rehanna Thelwell / Maria Robert Swedberg and Daniel Washington / Staging Coordinators Saturday Evening, February 17, 2018 at 7:30 Hill Auditorium Ann Arbor 66th Performance of the 139th Annual Season
139th Annual Choral Union Series This eveningÕs performance is supported by Lycera, Mr. and Mrs. Donald L. Morelock, and the Susan B. Ullrich Endowment Fund. Media partnership provided by WGTE 91.3 FM, WRCJ 90.9 FM, and Ann ArborÕs 107one. The Steinway piano used in this eveningÕs performance, donated to the Gershwin Initiative by the Gershwin family estates, is a 1933 Steinway Long A piano that was delivered to George in January 1934. It is highly likely to be one of two instruments upon which he wrote Porgy and Bess. Special thanks to all the members of the Porgy and Bess Artistic Planning Committee for their time and dedication to this production. Special thanks to Taylor Aldridge, Naomi Andr, Lisa Borgsdorf, MarkÊClague, Clare Croft, Jessica Getman, Jennifer Harge, Billicia Hines, Elizabeth James, Seema Jolly, Amanda Krugliak, John Sloan, Ann Arbor Public Schools Community Education and Recreation, ARTS.BLACK, the U-M Gershwin Initiative, the U-M Institute for the Humanities, and the U-M Museum of Art for their participation in events surrounding this eveningÕs performance. Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of lobby floral art for this eveningÕs performance. The worldwide copyrights in the music of George and Ira GershwinÊfor this presentation are licensed byÊthe Gershwin Family. Porgy and BessÊis presented by arrangement with Tams-Witmark Music Library, Inc. Gershwin is a registered trademark and service mark of Gershwin Enterprises. Porgy and Bess is a registered trademark and service mark of Porgy and Bess Enterprises. In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance. The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited. PROGRAM Setting Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1920 Act I, Scene 1 Catfish Row. A summer evening. Jasbo Brown Blues (Jasbo Brown, Chorus) Summertime (Clara, WomenÕs Chorus) Roll Dem Bones (Mingo, Sporting Life, Crap Shooters) Summertime, reprise (Clara, Crap Shooters) A Woman Is a Sometime Thing (Jake, Mingo, Sporting Life, Chorus) They Pass by SinginÕ (Porgy) A Woman Is a Sometime Thing, reprise (Porgy, Bess, Chorus) O Little Stars (Porgy) Act I, Scene 2 SerenaÕs Room. The following evening. Gone, Gone, Gone (Chorus) Overflow, Overflow (Porgy, Ensemble, Chorus) My ManÕs Gone Now (Serena, Chorus) LeavinÕ for the PromiseÕ LanÕ (Bess, Chorus) Intermission Act II, Scene 1 Catfish Row. A month later. It Take a Long Pull to Get There (Jake, Fishermen) I Got Plenty oÕ NuttinÕ (Porgy, Serena, Maria, Chorus) I Hates YoÕ StruttinÕ Style (Maria) The Buzzard Song (Porgy, Chorus) Bess, You Is My Woman Now (Porgy, Bess) Oh, I CanÕt Sit Down (Chorus) Act II, Scene 2 Kittiwah Island Ñ A palmetto jungle. Evening of the same day. I AinÕ Got No Shame (Chorus) It AinÕt Necessarily So (Sporting Life, Chorus) Shame on All You Sinners (Serena)Ê What You Want Wid Bess? (Bess, Crown) Act II, Scene 3 Catfish Row. The court before dawn. A week later. It Take a Long Pull to Get There, reprise (Jake, Fishermen) Oh, Doctor Jesus (Serena, Porgy, Peter, Lily) Street Cries (Strawberry Woman, Peter, Crab Man, Annie, Woman, Porgy, Maria) I Wants to Stay Here/I Loves You, Porgy (Porgy, Bess) Act II, Scene 4 SerenaÕs room. Dawn of the following day. Six Simultaneous Prayers (Soloists, Chorus) De Lawd Shake de Heavens (Chorus, Ensemble) Summertime, reprise (Clara) Oh, DereÕs Somebody KnockinÕ at de DoÕ (Chorus, Ensemble) A Red-Headed Woman (Crown, Chorus) Six Simultaneous Prayers, reprise (Chorus) Intermission Act III, Scene 1 Catfish Row. The next night. Clara, Clara, DonÕt You Be Downhearted (Chorus) Summertime, reprise (Bess)
Act III, Scene 2 Catfish Row. The next afternoon. ThereÕs a Boat DatÕs LeavinÕ Soon for New York (Sporting Life) Act III, Scene 3 Catfish Row. Early morning, one week later. Interlude: Catfish Row Wakes Up (Orchestra, Chorus) Sure to Go to Heaven (Chorus) Bess, oh, WhereÕs My Bess (Porgy, Maria, Serena) Oh Lawd, IÕm On My Way (Porgy, Chorus) This eveningÕs performance runs approximately four hours in duration, including two intermissions. CAST Porgy, a disabled beggar (bass-baritone) / Morris Robinson Bess, CrownÕs girl (soprano) / Talise Trevigne Crown, a tough stevedore (bass-baritone) / Norman Garrett Sporting Life, a dope peddler (tenor) / Chauncey Packer Robbins, a worker (tenor) / Camron Gray Serena, RobbinsÕ wife (soprano) / Karen Slack Jake, a fisherman (baritone) / Reginald Smith, Jr. Clara, JakeÕs wife (lyric soprano) / Janai Brugger Maria, keeper of the cook-shop (mezzo-soprano) / Rehanna Thelwell Mingo (tenor) / Darius Gillard Peter, the honeyman (tenor) / Dorian Dillard II Lily, PeterÕs wife (soprano) / Lenora Green-Turner Frazier, a ÒlawyerÓ (baritone) / Yazid Gray Annie (mezzo-soprano) / Goitsemang Lehobye Strawberry Woman, a peddler (mezzo-soprano) / Lenora Green-Turner Jim, a worker (baritone) / Edward Nunoo Undertaker (baritone) / Yazid Gray Nelson (tenor) / Darius Gillard Crab Man, a peddler (tenor) / Camron Gray Scipio, a small boy (boy treble) / Darius Gillard Jasbo Brown (piano) / Ellen Rowe Mr. Archdale, a lawyer (spoken) / Stephen West Detective (spoken) / Malcolm Tulip Policeman (spoken) / Steven Jean Coroner (spoken) / Ethan Haberfield Crap Shooters / Darius Gillard, Camron Gray, Yazid Gray, Julian Goods, Edward Nunoo A Man / Yazid Gray A Woman / Goitsemang Lehobye OrphansÕ Band ARTISTIC PLANNING COMMITTEE Gershwin Initiative of the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance Mark Clague Jessica Getman Wayne Shirley UMS of the University of Michigan Jeffrey Beyersdorf Mark Jacobson Michael Kondziolka U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance Jerry Blackstone Paul Feeny Kathleen Kelly Kenneth Kiesler Willis Patterson Robert Swedberg Louise Toppin Daniel Washington SYNOPSIS by Lena Leson The curtain rises on Catfish Row. Clara, a young mother, sings a lullaby to her son (ÒSummertimeÓ) as the men of the community play a game of craps (ÒRoll Dem BonesÓ). The devout Serena asks her husband Robbins not to play, but he ignores her protests. ClaraÕs reprise of ÒSummertimeÓ in counterpoint with the craps game leads into JakeÕs rendition of ÒA Woman Is a Sometime ThingÓ to their child. Slowly, characters enter Catfish Row, including Porgy, a disabled beggar eager to gamble. Crown, a stevedore, arrives with his woman, Bess. The whiskey and Òhappy dustÓ (cocaine) Crown and Bess purchase from the local drug dealer, Sporting Life, amplify the eveningÕs intensity. When Robbins wins the craps game, the inebriated Crown tries to stop him from taking his winnings, and a brawl ensues. Crown stabs Robbins with a cotton hook and flees the scene, telling Bess that heÕll be back for her soon. Rejected by all the residents of Catfish Row as the police near, Bess takes refuge in PorgyÕs shack. The following evening, the community gathers to mourn Robbins and raise money for his burial (ÒOverflow, OverflowÓ). A white detective enters, threatening Serena and accusing Peter of RobbinsÕs murder. Peter pleads his innocence by revealing that Crown is guilty, yet the detective arrests Peter as a material witness. Serena laments RobbinsÕs death in the moving ÒMy ManÕs Gone Now,Ó and then the undertaker arrives; although the saucer is 10 dollars short, he agrees to bury Robbins. As the undertaker exits, Bess begins to sing ÒLeavinÕ for the PromiseÕ LanÕÓ; the chorus joins her in the gospel song as the first act comes to a close. Act II opens with Jake and the other fishermen as they prepare for work (ÒIt Take a Long Pull to Get ThereÓ). Clara, nervous about the stormy weather, asks Jake not to go, but he insists that they need the money. Porgy sings ÒI Got Plenty oÕ NuttinÕ,Ó a celebration of his newfound happiness with Bess. Sporting Life enters and starts peddling happy dust, but Maria, the proprietress of the cook-shop, gives him a tongue-lashing with ÒI Hates YoÕ StruttinÕ Style.Ó Soon Frazier, a self-styled lawyer, arrives to con Porgy into purchasing a fraudulent divorce. Archdale, a white attorney, brings Porgy news about PeterÕs impending release. Suddenly, a buzzard Ñ a bad omen Ñ flies over Catfish Row, frightening the community (ÒThe Buzzard SongÓ). Sporting Life tries to tempt Bess with some happy dust. Bess refuses, saying sheÕs given up drugs and changed her ways. Finally, Porgy grabs Sporting LifeÕs arm and scares him off. Left alone, Bess and Porgy sing a romantic duet (ÒBess, You Is My Woman NowÓ). Eager to get to Kittiwah Island for the annual church picnic, the chorus re-enters, singing ÒOh, I CanÕt Sit Down,Ó accompanied by an orphansÕ band. Maria makes a point of inviting Bess to the picnic. When Bess demurs, the community matriarch insists, and all except Porgy head to Kittiwah as he sings a reprise of ÒI Got Plenty oÕ NuttinÕ.Ó At the church picnic, Catfish Row celebrates, singing ÒI AinÕt Got No Shame.Ó Sporting Life critiques religion in ÒIt AinÕt Necessarily So.Ó As the community begins to pack up, Crown corners Bess. She tells him that she is PorgyÕs woman now and needs to get home to him (ÒWhat You Want Wid BessÓ), but Crown refuses to let her go. He forces himself on Bess as the boat leaves without her. A week later, Jake and the fishermen prepare to ship out (ÒIt Take a Long PullÓ reprised). Bess, still delirious after CrownÕs attack, is in PorgyÕs room with a fever. Serena prays over her, promising the anxious Porgy that Bess will be well by five oÕclock (ÒOh, Doctor JesusÓ). A trio of vendors passes through Catfish Row with their wares. As the clock strikes five, Bess miraculously recovers. Porgy tells Bess that he knows sheÕs been with Crown, and Bess confesses that Crown will be coming for her soon. Though Porgy does not pressure Bess to stay, he asks her to imagine a life without Crown. Bess tells Porgy that she loves him and begs him to protect her in ÒI Loves You, Porgy.Ó Meanwhile, Maria tries to calm Clara, who is fearful of the approaching storm. When the hurricane bell begins to ring, the residents shelter in SerenaÕs room. Their prayers and hymns (ÒSix Simultaneous PrayersÓ) bring some comfort, but Sporting Life continues to mock their faith. ClaraÕs reprise of ÒSummertimeÓ takes on haunting significance as she waits for word from Jake. A knock on the door terrifies the group, and Crown makes a dramatic entrance. Having braved the storm to get to Catfish Row, Crown taunts the community with a sexually suggestive song about Bess (ÒA Red-Headed WomanÓ). Suddenly, Clara sees JakeÕs capsized boat. She gives her baby to Bess and runs out into the hurricane. After tormenting Porgy for his disability, Crown agrees to go after her. The second act concludes as the chorus prays for the storm to end (a final reprise of ÒSix Simultaneous PrayersÓ). Act III begins with the community mourning for Clara, Jake, and the others killed in the hurricane (ÒClara, Clara, DonÕt You Be DownheartedÓ). They assume that Crown has also perished in the storm, but Sporting Life suggests that he may not be dead after all. Bess soothes Clara and JakeÕs baby with a tender reprise of ÒSummertime.Ó As night envelops Catfish Row, Crown quietly steals in to reclaim Bess. He is confronted by Porgy and killed. As Bess surveys the scene, Porgy declares, ÒYouÕve got a man now. YouÕve got Porgy!Ó The next afternoon, the white detective questions the residents of Catfish Row about CrownÕs murder. Serena and her friends refuse to answer, but Porgy admits that he knows Crown and is ordered to identify the body. Porgy is dragged off by the police, and Sporting Life makes his move. Telling Bess that Porgy will no doubt be locked up for a long time, he offers her happy dust, and the seductive portrait he paints of life in ÒThereÕs A Boat DatÕs LeavinÕ Soon for New YorkÓ proves too much to resist. A week later, Porgy returns to Catfish Row. Flush with winnings from playing craps with his cellmates, he gives out gifts Ñ but Bess is nowhere to be found. When he sees Serena with ClaraÕs baby, Porgy finally asks, ÒBess, oh, WhereÕs My Bess?Ó Maria and Serena explain that sheÕs gone off with Sporting Life, and Porgy resolves to find her. The opera concludes with the rousing ÒOh Lawd, IÕm On My WayÓ as the community prays for strength for Porgy on his impossible journey. Lena Leson is directorÊof education and undergraduate engagement at the Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan. Photo (next spread): John Bubbles (Sporting Life) and Anne Brown (Bess), 1935; courtesy of the Ira & Leonore Gershwin Trusts. CONFESSIONS OF AN EDITOR by Wayne Shirley I have loved Porgy and Bess since I was a child. My parents sang ÒSummertimeÓ (and, occasionally, ÒA Woman Is a Sometime ThingÓ) to me when I was very young. As a sub-teen, I saw the Cheryl Crawford production Ñ the production that started the tradition of Porgy-with-spoken-dialogue. As a teenager, I saw the 1950s Leontyne Price/William Warfield/Cab Calloway Porgy which later toured Europe. In my early 20s, I saw the remnants of that production as it toured summer theaters, with only Calloway remaining of the original cast. In my late 20s, when I went to work in the music division of the Library of Congress, it was several days before I got up the courage to take one of the three large blue-bound volumes of Porgy and Bess down from the shelf Ñ GershwinÕs manuscript orchestral score of the opera, the principal (though by no means only) source for this edition. Through the years I have lectured and published on Gershwin in general, and on Porgy and Bess in particular, with emphasis on the notes-on-paper which are the principal business of an editor. When the George Gershwin Trust, the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts, and the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Trust decided to heed Ira GershwinÕs late-in-life declaration Ñ ÒWe must do right by PorgyÓ Ñ by producing a published edition of the full orchestral score (IÕll call it the Òfull scoreÓ from now on), I had the honor of being chosen to edit it. The edition you are hearing today does not differ radically from the Porgy and Bess we have known: the same things happen in the same order to music whose occasional differences are, for the most part, noticeable only to those who know the opera as performers. The most easily recognizable difference is in Act II, Scene 1, in which an 11-piece OrphansÕ Band joins the residents of Catfish Row in marching off to their picnic on Kittiwah Island. The music is the same (ÒOh, I CanÕt Sit DownÓ); the pit orchestra plays as it has in previous productions, but the OrphansÕ Band weaves itself into the music, sometimes doubling, sometimes giving the call (clarinet) to which the pit orchestra gives the response (flute and piccolo). The Jenkins Orphanage Band was a fixture of Charleston musical life in the first half of the 20th century (you can hear them in outtakes from early Fox Movietone newsreels on YouTube), but since the first production and the 1938 West Coast revival, the OrphansÕ Band in Porgy and Bess has only been heard in the 2006 Nashville recording. The scoring of the OrphansÕ Band is GershwinÕs own; it is not in any performing materials that have circulated prior to this edition. It is good to have it back. Other, smaller changes were more significant for me: YouÕll hear an exchange between Porgy and Bess just before ÒBess, You Is My Woman NowÓ that was mysteriously omitted from the original piano-vocal score (and thus from the performance material until now). This exchange beautifully sets up the duet. Act II Scene 1: Folks are gathering to go off to the picnic. Jake, the prosperous fisherman, has just told Bess, ÒBe sure to come Õlong to the picnic, Bess.Ó TodayÕs edition includes the following bit of dialogue, not heard in any previous staged production of Porgy and Bess: Porgy [singing]: Yes, Bess, I feels you ought to go. Bess [speaking]: lf you ainÕ goinÕ, I ainÕ goinÕ. Porgy [singing]: Bess, you is my woman now ... AnÕ you musÕ laugh anÕ sing anÕ dance for two instead of one.... Let me mention one further spot Ñ a mere two measures Ñ which for me is a welcome newcomer in this new edition. This one was present in the first production, in the 1938 West Coast revival, and in the early-1940s Cheryl Crawford production. But itÕs not in the published vocal score, so itÕs not in the performance material that has been available until now. Let me describe it. At the start of Act III the women have gathered to mourn those who have died in the hurricane, singing the chorus ÒClara, Clara, DonÕt You Be Downhearted.Ó The men accompany them, humming. When Gershwin scored the beginning of the act he added two measures of the men humming before the women enter; this changes a rather awkward joint between the instrumental introduction and the first choral entry into a completely natural transition and gives the womenÕs entrance the tiny bit of extra preparation which makes it utterly beautiful. I sometimes say that I edited Porgy and Bess to get these two measures back into
the score. The truth, however, is that editors edit in order to produce a clean, accurate, and readable musical text. In this edition, the occasional wrong note is repaired; slurs, ties, and accents are regularized; dynamics are trued up (composers sometimes get weary of writing, say, ÒffÓ on every line in a full score); strings are vetted to ensure that changes between arco (with the bow) and pizzicato (plucked) have been accurately indicated. Sources previous to the full score (sketches and the like) are checked to see whether important dynamic, tempo, or expression marks have been accidentally omitted in the full score (were they omitted by accident, or were they in fact discarded?); later sources (such as early, surviving orchestral parts) are also examined (was that change made as an improvement or because the player was not capable of playing the passage as written?). And, if the edition is Ñ like those produced by the Gershwin Initiative Ñ a Òcritical edition,Ó the editor documents what has been changed from the primary source, so that the music director does not have to worry whether a spot is actually GershwinÕs as he wrote it or whether itÕs been adjusted by a 21st-century editor. All this the editor does with pleasure. Several decades ago, a British reviewer in Opera magazine, reviewing a European production of Porgy and Bess, remarked that it was quite possibly the opera, closest to the core repertory, for which there was not a generally available orchestral score. Through this project, one will soon be available. Wayne Shirley is the editor of this edition of Porgy and Bess. He was previously a member of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, from which he retired as senior music specialist in 2002. THE GERSHWINSÕ PORGY AND BESS AND THE QUEST FOR AMERICAN OPERA by Mark Clague For me, the opera Porgy and Bess (1935) is about resilience: about a communityÕs hope for a better future despite the cruel evidence of experience. Catfish Row amplifies the struggle of American society with racial injustice, poverty, sexism, addiction, sexual violence, natural disaster, murder, and the divisions of society into north and south, sacred and secular, black and white. I wish that performing this very human drama Ñ written and premiered more than 80 years ago Ñ was simply an act of remembrance. I wish that it served only as a reminder of a past forgotten at our peril, of inequities and diseases vanquished, of civil rights heroes who, responding to injustice across the nation, bravely confronted and solved these very American problems. If this were true, Porgy and Bess would celebrate a transcendent human spirit, while serving as a warning about an era that should never return. Unfortunately, Porgy and Bess is not simply a memory, but a living document. The injustices it confronts remain. It is thus with tragic intensity that in 2018 Porgy and Bess still expresses a potent and contemporary urgency that resonates with our everyday lives. The operaÕs plot is propelled by the bias of white law enforcement Ñ false accusations, facile assumptions, a rush to judgment in the absence of real justice Ñ while today, black men in America are disproportionally killed by the police. In Act II, a hurricane kills most of the men of the fishing village, while stealing both mother and father from an infant in whom hopes of a bright future had been placed. Over this past year, three major hurricanes Ñ Harvey, Irma, and Maria Ñ hit American shores, making the stormÕs warning bells in the opera that much more foreboding and frightening. When Crown attacks Bess during the Kittiwah Island picnic, it recalls the growing list of sexual misconduct accusations in todayÕs news. At the end of the opera, addiction enslaves Bess to a life of prostitution, while in 2016 opioid addiction killed more than 20,000 Americans. In facing these issues, performing Porgy and Bess offers an opportunity for dialogue Ñ not just about the past, but about the present. The insidious danger of Porgy and Bess as a cultural monument is that its black characters can be interpreted as caricatures, not dramatic personae. In a society in which whites are privileged and blacks are not, the enthralled listener to GershwinÕs music can experience Catfish Row uncritically. Crown can be seen not as a troubled contradiction caught in a desperate cycle of survival and addiction, but as a stereotype reinforcing white fears of black violence. Read in racist terms, the poverty of Catfish Row becomes emblematic of black (in-)capability rather than a depiction of a community of working-class strivers facing a mountain of inequality. To sponsor a performance of Porgy and Bess, then, is to take on the responsibility for contextualizing and informing the operaÕs audience of both its racist dangers and its artful activism. As a white man leading the Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan, I have struggled with the meaning of preparing the score of Porgy and Bess for posterity. What is the operaÕs legacy? I admit that in 2013, when we began work on the new score only months after the re-election of the USÕs first black President, the question seemed partially answered. Today, the question is again critical. I am enchanted by George GershwinÕs music and the collaborative work on the libretto by the Heywards and Ira Gershwin, which combine to forge what for me is the operaÕs very human expression of passion, pain, and possibility. I was further driven by personal loyalty to my fellow scholar, Wayne Shirley, as I want to help bring his virtuoso feat of scholarly editing to print. Yet, ultimately, the answer to this question cannot be mine. I am sensitive to the call from former U-M professor Harold Cruse (1916Ð2005) asking black artists of the 1960s to boycott Porgy and Bess. As described in his 1967 book The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, GershwinÕs opera was Òa symbol of that deeply engrained, American cultural paternalismÓ that obscured black artistsÕ originality in ÒNegro theater, music, acting, writing, and even dancing, all in one artistic package.Ó For Cruse, the success of Porgy and Bess became a barrier to the realization of other new works of black authorship. The way out of this paradox of appropriation is to democratize the controls of cultural production such that African American writers, lyricists, and composers can tell their own stories. And it cannot stop there. #OscarsSoWhite must give way to more than Selma, Moonlight, and Get Out. The theater must go beyond Hamilton. Works by women, Latin Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans Ñ any and all authors Ñ deserve a chance to thrive on their artistic merits and message. Studying Porgy and Bess has convinced me that its all-white creative team, while writing from their own necessarily limited perspective and experiences, saw the opera as an opportunity to bring the talents of black artists to the cultural mainstream. Their activism Ñ if it can be called that Ñ balanced entertainment with a focus on an American experience typically excluded from popular production. While African American composers such as Scott Joplin, Harry Lawrence Freeman, and James P. Johnson had written operas about the black experience before Porgy and Bess came on the scene, the celebrity of George Gershwin was necessary in 1935 to bring the story of black America to Broadway. That the composer turned down a $5,000 commission from New YorkÕs Metropolitan Opera (about $100,000 in todayÕs dollars), in order to avoid the use of white choristers in blackface, speaks to the composerÕs own growth since the failure of his 1922 blackface musical drama Blue Monday. Countless musical moments in Porgy and Bess speak to the GershwinsÕ and HeywardsÕ respect for black creativity. The composer spent nearly 10 years preparing for the work, after reading DuBose HeywardÕs novel Porgy in 1926. GershwinÕs creative gifts were so facile that such a period of study and preparation was unprecedented in his professional life. He seemed to know that Porgy and Bess would be the most challenging project he had yet faced. The lullaby ÒSummertimeÓ is the first aria heard in the opera. It gives voice to the dreams of a mother for her child. The beauty of its first note Ñ a difficult entrance, soft and high in the sopranoÕs tessitura Ñ reflects the challenges facing Jake and ClaraÕs newborn son. The songÕs hope and soaring lyricism serves as a tragic foil that foreshadows the loss to come, yet its endless melody is also the seed of the resilience that will allow Catfish Row to carry on after tragedy. Gershwin did not quote African American music in Porgy and Bess verbatim, but created original music that evokes its style and sensibilities. His music draws from the performances of Cab Calloway in New York, and especially from the music of the Gullah people, who lived on and around the Georgia Sea Islands near Charleston, South Carolina, where the opera is set. Gershwin resided on one of these islands Ñ Folly Island Ñ for a month in the summer of 1934 to experience its soundscape. Echoes of his research can be heard throughout the opera, as when Robbins is killed and his wife Serena sings ÒMy ManÕs Gone Now,Ó an intimate cry of love lost and dreams thrown into disarray. In response, the Catfish Row community rallies to support his widow and their children, mirroring their devastation
in the spiritual-like anthem ÒGone, Gone, Gone.Ó The paternalism of which Cruse complained is evident in the HeywardsÕ introduction to the play Porgy, upon which the operaÕs libretto is based. However, it also reveals the playwrightsÕ excitement to invite black actors into a collaborative process in which they would contribute their own creativity to the storytelling. In fact, the vendorsÕ cries Ñ selling deviled crab, honey, and strawberries Ñ were not part of the original novel, but instead were added to the text by the black actors themselves to increase the dramaÕs realism. In the opera, singers can steal the show with these evocative calls. The Strawberry Woman and Crab ManÕs rising slides give voice to the day-to-day struggle for existence with virtuoso power and emotional eloquence. The collaborative legacy hidden in these moments between art and artist continues to nourish the opera as a whole today, as a new generation of singers bring their own talents, character research, and emotional understandings to some of the most demanding and artistically challenging vocal roles in all of operaÕs repertory. Finally, PorgyÕs climactic expression of duty in the face of the impossible Ñ ÒOh Lawd, IÕm On My WayÓ Ñ fulfills for me the essential message of DuBose HeywardÕs novel and the newspaper clipping that served as its inspiration. Heyward had read a brief notice in a Charleston paper about Samuel Smalls, a local character and disabled beggar known as ÒGoat Sammy.Ó Smalls was apparently wanted by the police on the charge of attempted murder, and, for Heyward, the thought that a black man, crippled both physically and economically, could be so bold as to attempt to take anotherÕs life seemed the inspiration for a powerful story. Born and raised in Charleston, the writer changed ÒSammyÓ to ÒPorgy,Ó resulting in the 1925 novel. It is a tale of the transformation of a weak beggar into a determined, strong, and dynamic force. Prior to studying HeywardÕs novel, the ending of GershwinÕs opera always left me disappointed. GershwinÕs optimistic music seemed to say it was possible that Porgy could find Bess, but I heard PorgyÕs determination as a delusion. Now, it seems to me that the opera is really the tale of PorgyÕs transformation. He begins the opera as a smart but impotent survivor who scrapes subsistence from coins dropped by sympathetic passersby. By the end of the opera