The Complex History and Uneasy Present of ‘Porgy and Bess’

Seeing Marshall's huge banner outside the Met opera House, the ugly drawing turned me off. What a disappoinment to publicize this great occasion of this revival. Porgy and Bess look like unpleasant, overly exaggerated comic book characters. This opera is unique in the quality, the poignancy and expressiveness of the music. But it is a good idea to show Porgy 'braced for action', as a strong hero, protecting Bess. He's courageous. At the wonderful end of the opera Porgy resolves to follow Bess to NY to find her. He sings: Oh, Lawd, I`m on my way, I`m on my way to a Heavenly Land, I`ll ride that long, long road. If you are there to guide my hand. Oh, Lawd, I`m on my way, I`m on my way to a Heavenly Land - Oh, Lawd. It`s a long, long way, but You`ll be there to take my hand.pleasant. That's the style they picked. I've admired Eric Owens singing. Judging from the wonderful photos of his facial expressions in this role, he will do it justice --- and will be way more than a comic book character.

Heyward was not trying to reproduce the "Negro" dialect. He had studied the Gullah idiom for years -- as had his mother -- and he had lived and worked with the people. That was the dialect (and way of life) he was trying to capture -- not the “Negro” dialect or the “Negro” way of life per se.

The Gershwins wrote a masterpiece that has been interpreted by God knows how many black artists over the decades, and are now catching flak for it from people who, in my opinion, don't have a clue. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes great art is simply great art.

I'm a distressingly white guy of mongrel Brit and German heritage, who briefly sang as a semi-pro bass-baritone. While a callow 20-something, I dressed up as aged Italian kings, Nordic gods, a couple of incarnations of the Devil, a mostly destitute French wannabe philosopher, an Austrian trickster, and an Oriental lord. Doubtless Mr. Owens has sung every one of those roles, hugely better. I bloody hope nobody castigated him for the "cultural appropriation" of interpreting the superb bass roles in Verdi or Wagner, Puccini or Tchaikovsky - instead (justly) celebrating the artistry and perspective he brought to the stage. Surely, though, "cultural appropriation" is a broad-ranging concept, if it has legitimacy. The problematic nature of Gershwin writing a piece about some African Americans is actual - how about Puccini writing "La Fanciulla del West?" Verdi writing Aida or MacBeth, or Wagner writing ... anything? Who has the gravitas and cultural claim to sing Wotan, after all? Mr. Owens, for one. Though God knows, the most correct among us might reserve the role only for singers blessed with one eye.

I recognize the worthy motive for the stipulation to require an "all black" cast, BUT when a whole new chorus is hired to replace the GREATEST opera chorus in the world, one which is incredibly diverse as well--well, I think that stipulation goes too far. The best IS the best, and one wants to hear it. Further, to complain that the black characters are dressed in rags and their community is terribly poor as evidence of stereotyping shows an amazing ignorance of how things were in Savannah and the South in the 1930's. Black or white, the poor were in rags there and in a lot of other places! Further, they were out of work, black and white alike and living hand to mouth where and as they could. Porgy and Bess represents not just black life, but black life as a segment of the Great Depression in the South. Accept it, love it for itself, but don't demonize it.

Was lucky to attend the dress rehearsal today September 19. Without going into unnecessary details, I can say that Angel Blue as Bess moves the audience at every moment, in the tradition of high bel-canto. The duet before the picnic at the end of act 1 is pure opera: Gershwins' brassy score, rhythmic and evoking the purest feelings and Porgy and Bess declaring their love to each other. Unique. Some of the best singing I've heard in 20 years. Brava Angel Blue! She was fully into the role acting and projecting feelings which matched the text and the notes -- she took this to new hights. Kudos to production, choreography and costumes. Go see it!

I can't wait... I really can't wait until the generation that follows Z is old enough to weigh in on Millenials' obsessive need to pick apart anything and everything and label it "problematic." What have they offered us (artistically) as an alternative? My own, admittedly limited, experience has been a lot of diverse casts in moderately enjoyable productions that are far more worried about being safe and acceptable than they are in grabbing the audience by the throat. Performance art in 2019 = "Meh." Generation Whateverwecallthem is going to enjoy tearing down all the Millenials' sacred cows as all generations did before them. I hope they keep the equity part and skip the sanctimony part. I suspect "Porgy and Bess" will live on.

All of the "questions" raised about Porgy and Bess are simply wrong, are disguised attacks based on misunderstanding, and a simply negative attitude. Porgy provides vital employment for many singers as there are always touring productions, for some it is their entire careeer. The characters are not stereotypes. They may be types, but I defy anyone to write about that time and place with characters who would not be "types." I recall a glorious production at Radio City Music Hall, in which Porgy was clearly a strong man. His handicap only underscores his power. For singers to be "afraid" of appearing in Porgy is tragic. I assume, then, they would not do Showboat, either.

Americans of all backgrounds can relate to having "Plenty O' Nuttin'".

Wagner fans will know Eric Owens well. Tremendous performance as the loathsome Alberich. Looking forward to hearing his take on Porgy. I hope to stream it on the Met's online service, as I'm too cheap for a live ticket.

Yes but you forget to mention Porgy and Bess would have gone to the grave of many productions if it hadn't been for the Drama Critic Douglas Watt. Read your own obit published in 2009 of Mr. Watt

It's the music, dammit. The novel it's based on is unreadable, but the adaptation presents a heroically doomed couple as tragic as any other in opera. And then there's the music, forever and unforgettable. Gershwin is the American Puccini, but uniquely himself. If they ban the work I will hoard my copies til I die.

Porgy and Bess is a spectacular work of art that has just about as much to do with the African American experience as Turnadot has to do with China. And that lack of verisimilitude couldn't matter less.

Listen to this score! It is as great an opera as any written and a purely American one to boot. To reduce it to a mere musical is an insult to Gershwin. Gorgeous and moving.

George Gershwin wrote a “folk opera” (his words) that over the decades many people—black, white and other—have found very enjoyable and entertaining. If anyone does not like Porgy and Bess for whatever reason, let him or her write his or her own opera and see if it is or becomes as popular as Gershwin’s—good luck with that. Or is it that because Gershwin was a Jew he should only write operas and song about Jews? I don’t think so.

I guess everything these days is viewed through a political lens. Perhaps Porgy and Bess continues to be performed because it’s good. A lot of modern-day composers may complain, but while their operas may have culturally significant stories, the music doesn’t resonate with audiences. The lead character in Die Meistersinger has a late-show rant that’s straight out of National Socialism. Cav and Pag don’t portray Italians in a flattering light. Traviata is all about a prostitute, Don Giovanni is about a rapist. Let opera be opera. It’s entertainment, not the solution to social issues.

I grew up in a small rural community. I got my music from the Columbia record club. Once a month, whether we needed it or not. I first listened to the music of Porgy and Bess in 1953. Like my first real adult length book, I have never forgotten it. The nuances of the story escaped me, there were no black people in our county, but it didn’t matter, the music was so powerful, and not a little bit personal. Every time a new release is available, I buy it. Same with South Pacific, Oklahoma, Carousel, and Victory at Sea. I’m much older now and think I understand the plot beneath the plot, but, it still doesn’t matter. The music matters!

Like all the "great works" of theatre (performance) art existing in the universal canon that challenge the minds and hearts of both performer and perceiver in a 'human collective' connection to its creator's initial 'idea' (as she/he sees it in their creative moment), in the way "Porgy and Bess" does, will always bounce back into place, at the top of the heap, to be translated anew by the next, and next to further inspire us to continue "our most needed conversations" about ourselves, during our infinite human evolution -- the nature of art. This gem of theatre/music/dance (art) couldn't have come back at a more opportune time than now to spur our needed talking, listening, experiencing and, hopefully, growing. Bravissimi, Met & performing artists!

How did the composers of Porgy and Bess get it right? How did they cross cultural barriers to create a great opera? Puccini did that in Madame Butterfly and Girl Of The Golden West. Gilbert and Sullivan did that in The Mikado. The answer is "genius" which is hard to explain. We find it in Ravel's orchestration of Pictures At An Exhibition....genius producing perfection in music. Let's just be grateful even for what can't be fully understood.

Eric Owens is a superb artist, we are good hands.

My wife and I were lucky enough to be able to see the Lincoln Center version with the Houston Opera in 1976. It was an absolute dream like experience. Probably the most beautiful presented piece of art I have ever experienced. I felt I had died and gone to heaven. Luckily we are still on earth and look forward to a deja vu experience.

In the role of composer/lyricist, Stephen Sondheim has no equal. In the role of critic - as in his attack on Paulus and Parks’s powerfully moving production – the foot in his mouth rivaled the boot topping the Martin Beck at the opening of “Into The Woods”

So the gist of this is that people are complaining about stereotypes in operatic characters? Really? There isn't an operatic character from any culture's tradition that doesn't lean heavily on broad-brush character painting. It's the nature of the beast. The details of "Porgy and Bess" aren't necessarily any more historically accurate than the "deserts of Louisiana" on which the protagonists of Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" perish. All good drama is about human stories (and in opera the music, too), not historic detail.

I love Porgy and Bess. Seen it maybe ten or eleven times, including the Broadway with revisions. Yeah, it’s a problematic show in terms of race, and that’s more than okay to highlight and discuss. Sondheim’s op ed about Paulus’ version was impassioned, but I’m surprised this article didn’t mention Hilton Als’ response in The New Yorker, which is deeply edifying, tracing the show’s genesis and describing why the audiences for it are usually white. And it’s true.

I first saw Porgy and Bess in a 1939 (?) revival. It has stayed with me since then. If Porgy is a stereotype, then so is Carmen, Pagliacci, and a host of other operas. I have a recent recording, "cleaned up". It is jarring. No one living on a Catfish Row spoke like that. And African Americans of the time were terrified of the police, and to perform otherwise is a misrepresentation. Keep in mind that the Gerswhwins and DuBose Heyward traveled to the barrier islands to get the 1939 flavors of the places, and then maintained that flavor in the finished work. To censor Porgy and Bess is the same as censoring a revival of a work in the Yiddish Art Theater, and every bit as artistically objectionable.

There are a couple of things to note: first, the original creative team spent time in Charleston trying to absorb the dialect, and even though it's not really Gullah (which most audiences wouldn't understand), it does use some authentic black speech patterns. Second: this "full" version would never have been endorsed by the Gershwins. They ran the production in Boston and made (as savvy theater people will) cuts to their original for the New York run. Charles Hamm wrote extensively on the damage done by "restoring" the Gershwins' "original" in the Journal of the American Musicological Society. In short, we usually see a bowdlerized of the piece. And I remind myself every time I give the Met (or any other) version a try, that I'm not seeing what the Gershwins actually put on stage, the version they thought most effective.

Porgy and Bess is a great work of art, America's greatest opera. It can't be improved by inserting explanatory notes or treating the audience as too dumb to know why the characters speak in dialect. Performing it whole, especially with the full original orchestration, is crucial to the integrity of the work.

The only real shame about Porgy and Bess is that it's so frequently reduced to its greatest hits. Summertime, Plenty o' Nuttin', and It Ain't Necessarily So are all great, but only when you listen to the entire opera do you get the texture of the smaller gems buried within. Pieces and motives like "Here Come the Honeyman," "Clara Don't You Be Downhearted ('Jesus is Walking on the Water')," and "Buzzard, Keep on Flying Over" really reveal the genius of the whole work.

The many legitimate societal questions about the blackness of Porgy and Bess will never keep it from the stage for one reason and one reason alone. It is truly great music.

I have been listening to Porgy and Bess my whole life. I love it. The work will last and will outlast its critics.

My favorite opera. See it every chance I get.

It is truly a great American classic. Thank you Gershwins (sp?) for creating the music from a rich and vibrant subject matter,especially at that time. Please let’s not over analyze the cultural aspect of appropriation and just enjoy the music.

Can there be any music pretty than Miles Davis doing Porgy & Bess? Thank God for CDs. I wonder how many vinyl's I replaced of Porgy because I wore them out.