George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess is considered the first significant American opera. Its timeless melodies and memorable tunes have made it an integral part of American musical culture. One standout song from the opera is “Summertime,” which has been recorded and sampled by various artists, spanning different genres and eras, including Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and ska-punk band Sublime.
Despite being venerated, the piece has a controversial and problematic history due to its depiction of African-Americans and the libretto’s racial slurs. The origins of Gershwin’s first opera can be traced back to 1925 when DuBose Heyward’s novel, Porgy, was published. Heyward collaborated closely with George Gershwin and his brother Ira Gershwin to write the lyrics and libretto for the piece. Initially, the opera was well-received and had 124 performances on Broadway (1).
Initially, the African-American community viewed the opera as a very sympathetic piece, despite the presence of racial slurs in the libretto that were seemingly overlooked by both black and white critics who primarily evaluated “Porgy and Bess” as a unique theatrical experience. These critics especially highlighted Gershwin’s innovative incorporation of blues tonalities, spirituals, and other elements of African-American music into a complete opera (1).
The folk opera’s positive reception demonstrates the deep embedding of racial slurs into American culture at the time. Even African-Americans praised the piece for its immersion in the negro culture of that era. In the early 1940s, a revival of Porgy and Bess on Broadway led to a revision of the original text. Ira Gershwin, brother of composer George, replaced the racist words with more socially acceptable alternatives like “tin horns, dummy, low-life, suckers, buzzard, and baby” (1). Producer Goddard Lieberson acknowledged the changing ethical values as times evolved.
Despite the elimination of offensive words in the lyrics, the replacement words used are derogatory and harmful, revealing the true nature of the original language in the first edition of the work. While the story attempts to sympathetically depict the conditions for African Americans, it still portrays their culture with a somewhat misguided sense of exoticism and positions them below white characters socially and morally.
Porgy, a beggar and handicapped dependent, Bess, a helpless prostitute and drug addict, and Crown, a dangerous murderer, portray African-American culture as inferior and in need of sophistication or correction. These controversial representations sparked numerous discussions. In the 1950s and 60s, the civil rights movement initiated necessary changes for equal rights among people of different races and cultures.
Activists fighting for equality in African American culture were also determined to eliminate or modify portrayals of black Americans as inferior citizens. When it came to Porgy and Bess, this meant a thorough examination of the plot, setting, language, character portrayal, and underlying messages. According to Joe Nocera, the early stages of the civil rights movement led African Americans to view the characters in the play as stereotypes created by white individuals, and the story itself as degrading due to its violence, drug use, and submission to white authority. The Pittsburgh Courier, an African American newspaper, editorialized that the play brought shame, sorrow, and disgust. Additionally, Nocera comments that by the 1960s, Porgy and Bess was seen as a mixed blessing among black singers. The African American intelligentsia viewed it unfavorably as an example of subservience, commonly known as Uncle Tomism. Although the play offered steady employment for black actors and singers, it often trapped them within a narrow range of roles. In other words, they would be stuck performing in Porgy and Bess and be labeled accordingly.
It became a stigma. Once you sang in it, you couldn’t get cast in anything else … with touches of minstrel show that its cast members found humiliating … Singing in Porgy and Bess put food on the table, but it had become a distasteful experience. African Americans found for modern ideals and times, Porgy and Bess’ outdated representation and treatment of African Americans in need of a long overdue adjustment. Participating in a production of the work meant a future of typecast roles for Black singers, revealing the era’s producer’s attitudes toward the quality of Afro-Americans. African Americans did not want to associate with Porgy and Bess, as they felt that the opera offensively portrayed their race in a myriad of manners.
The reputation of the work was somewhat restored by the 1970’s, as society moved past the successful civil rights movement. However, in 1976, Porgy and Bess underwent significant changes, one of which involved the use of racist language in the libretto. The restoration of the original language in the production brought the work back to its rightful place in American art. This change dramatically transformed Porgy and Bess from a representation of racism towards African Americans to a window into the past, revealing how whites treated African Americans.
The piece’s status changed for the performers as well, as they were no longer portraying characters based on white stereotypes but instead depicted victims and educators of a dark period in American history. Despite not having complete knowledge of the history of Porgy and Bess, contemporary viewers can watch Diane Paulus’s Broadway musical adaptation called The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Paulus successfully transforms this cherished American opera into a production that is relevant for today’s theatergoers.
According to Joseph Horowitz, there cannot be a Gershwin purist. However, some critics have a different opinion. Robert Gottlieb suggests that the musical theatre elements in the adaptations of Porgy and Bess push it further away from Gershwin’s original operatic intentions and towards becoming a successful Broadway production. He states that this alteration is acceptable as long as one is satisfied with a version that is less substantial. It is important to note that these modifications go beyond aesthetics, as they result in significant changes in the characters of Porgy and Bess.
Porgy appears more confident and physically imposing in this adaptation, no longer relying on a goat cart and instead using a cane. This change eliminates any suggestion of racial weakness or hidden meaning in his disability. In 2009, Jeffrey Richard and Ms. Paulus collaborated to reimagine Porgy and Bess, maintaining its musical elements while updating and redefining the story. With the support of Jerry Frankel and a dedicated production team, Richards aimed to modernize the plot without compromising the original music.
The team was concerned that the characters were not fully represented or explored. Ms. Paulus acknowledges that in the opera, many of the characters, especially Bess, are not fully developed as individuals. Bess is portrayed as a gender-defined, sex-addicted African American woman who goes back and forth between Crown and Porgy while being addicted to drugs. However, Joe Nocera argues that the current producers’ efforts to make the opera racially inoffensive may be misguided, considering its history. He believes that it is important to stay true to the composers’ original intentions when modernizing such a controversial opera. One factor that contributed to the success of Paulus’s rendition was the accessibility to the Gershwin Estate. Foster Hirsch laments that the Gershwin Estate has prevented filmgoers from seeing and judging Preminger’s film, which is both elegant and moving.
The estate has given approval to the new Broadway project and transferred the property to a new team, despite previous reluctance. Robert Kimball, the artistic advisor to the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts, discloses that they have agreed to include a (mostly) black creative team for this project. The team consists of Suzan-Lori Parks as playwright, Diedre Murray as musical adapter, and Ronald K. Brown as choreographer – all of whom are African-American. This decision was made in response to previous requests that were initially met with hesitation; however, their perspective changed and they decided to provide this team with an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.
Works Cited
The source for this information is a link to The New York Times, specifically an article about the theater production “Porgy and Bess” featuring Audra McDonald. The link was last accessed on March 14, 2013.The source for this information is The New York Observer, which can be found at http://observer.com/2012/01/necessarily-so-porgy-and-bess-may-not-be-known-as-a-dance-show-but-its-choreography-can-make-a-difference/. I accessed it on March 13, 2013.
The article “For Porgy and Bess, the Livin’ is Easy on Broadway” from The New York Observer, can be found at http://observer.com/2012/01/for-porgy-and-bess-the-livin-is-easy-on-broadway/. This information was last accessed on March 14, 2013.
The New York Times published an article on the Broadway show “Porgy and Bess” by Gershwin. The full article, which can be found at http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/theater/gershwins-porgy-and-bess-on-broadway-is-more-for-theater-fans.html?ref=georgegershwin&pagewanted=print&_r=0, is only accessible through printing. The article was last accessed on March 14, 2013.The text is taken from an article titled “In Porgy and Bess, Variations on an Explosive Theme” by Joe Nocera. It was featured in The New York Times Sunday edition on January 22, 2012. To read the complete article, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/nocera-in-porgy-and-bess-variations-on-an-explosive-theme.html?pagewanted=all.
Opera News published an article called “The Renovation of Catfish Row” which can be found at http://www.operanews.com/Opera_News_Magazine/2012/1/Features/The_Renovation_of_Catfish_Row.html. The article was last accessed on March 14, 2013.
The Times Literary Supplement, http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article872743.ece, was last accessed on March 14, 2013.
