George Gershwin - Porgy and Bess
May 6th, 2007 by Bauman
“One of these mornin’s you’s gonna rise up singin’…”
George Gershwin had wanted to write an opera about the African-American experience long before he read DuBose Heyward’s novel Porgy in 1926. In Heyward’s portrayal of life on “Catfish Row” - based on the very real Cabbage Row in Heyward’s hometown of Charleston - Gershwin recognized his material. Heyward accepted Gershwin’s proposal for a joint project, but both he and Gershwin were busy with other projects and agreed to put off their collaboration until a later date.
In 1934 Gershwin finally began to compose his “American folk opera,” incorporating blues and jazz elements into the classical opera form. When Porgy and Bess premiered in 1935 - with an entire cast of classically trained African-American vocalists - it was not popularly successful, but it was controversial. Some found the use of African-American dialect offensive and Gershwin’s use of the opera form was deemed unconvincing. Although Gershwin considered it his finest work, in the end both he and Heyward lost money on the project.
For decades, Porgy and Bess was not seriously regarded as a legitimate opera, but in 1976 the Houston Grand Opera production changed the fate of Gershwin’s visionary work, helping to establish it as a standard in the operatic repertoire.
This deluxe edition of the piano-vocal score was published in 1935, the year of the opera’s premiere, and is boldly signed on the limitation page by George and Ira Gershwin and the other principal creators of Porgy and Bess: librettist DuBose Heyward and director Rouben Mamoulian. It has been further inscribed and signed by Gershwin in the year of publication, “To —– my sincere good wishes, George Gershwin, Oct 16, 1935.” Because of Gershwin’s tragic early death in 1937, inscribed copies of any of his works are exceedingly rare.