By
– August 23, 2011
Porgy and Bess received its world premiere on the same day in 1935 that Franklin Roosevelt dedicated Hoover Dam. It is no less monumental a work, and its 75th anniversary was well worth noting and celebrating. Despite some glaring flaws — most notably, the title’s slighting of one of the opera’s principal begettors, DuBose Heyward — this volume is an appropriate huzzah. Ironically, in light of its title, the book’s main virtue is its account of the work’s genesis, beginning with Heyward’s unlikely life experience among the Gullah community of Charleston, South Carolina. An aspiring poet who descended from a prominent family of slave-owning planters that fell on hard times after the Civil War, Heyward paid tribute to that community in his best-selling novel Porgy, which was subsequently adapted for the Broadway stage by his playwright wife, Dorothy, and himself.
Some years later, the novel caught the attention and imagination of George Gershwin, who became determined to compose an American “folk opera” based on Heyward’s tale. After much toil, Porgy and Bess—with music by Gershwin, and libretto and lyrics by Heyward (with assistance from Gershwin’s brother Ira, who contributed the words for a half-dozen songs and collaborated with Heyward on two others) — finally saw the light of day.
As Thompson notes, the opera provoked controversy from the start on two broad fronts. Was it really an opera, or a musical comedy with delusions of grandeur? Are the characters it portrays accurate and ennobling ethnographic portraits or demeaning stereotypes? Postmodern analysis would show that these concerns were intriguingly related, as both were based on artificial, class-determined boundaries between artistic genres and ethnic types. As such boundaries came to be discarded as irrelevant and ultimately pernicious constructs, the inherent merits of individuals and works of art alike could be seen more clearly. In that light, Porgy and Bess has rightfully gained its current reputation as a masterpiece.
Some years later, the novel caught the attention and imagination of George Gershwin, who became determined to compose an American “folk opera” based on Heyward’s tale. After much toil, Porgy and Bess—with music by Gershwin, and libretto and lyrics by Heyward (with assistance from Gershwin’s brother Ira, who contributed the words for a half-dozen songs and collaborated with Heyward on two others) — finally saw the light of day.
As Thompson notes, the opera provoked controversy from the start on two broad fronts. Was it really an opera, or a musical comedy with delusions of grandeur? Are the characters it portrays accurate and ennobling ethnographic portraits or demeaning stereotypes? Postmodern analysis would show that these concerns were intriguingly related, as both were based on artificial, class-determined boundaries between artistic genres and ethnic types. As such boundaries came to be discarded as irrelevant and ultimately pernicious constructs, the inherent merits of individuals and works of art alike could be seen more clearly. In that light, Porgy and Bess has rightfully gained its current reputation as a masterpiece.
Additional Reading
Bill Brennan is an independent scholar and entertainer based in Las Vegas. Brennan has taught literature and the humanities at Princeton and The University of Chicago. He holds degrees from Yale, Princeton, and Northwestern.
