Porgy and Bess

  • Porgy, a crippled Black ( bass-baritone )
  • Bess, a young Black (soprano )
  • Sportin ' Life, the drug dealer (tenor )
  • Crown, a gutverdienender, brutal Black (baritone )
  • Jake Fischer ( baritone)
  • Clara, his wife (Soprano)
  • Robbins, a young fisherman (tenor )
  • Serena, his wife (Soprano)
  • Peter, an old Black (Tenor)
  • Mary, his wife (Alt )
  • Jim (baritone )
  • Mingo (Tenor)
  • Lily ( mezzo-soprano)
  • Annie (mezzo- soprano)
  • Crab seller (Tenor)
  • Mr. Archdale, a white lawyer (voice)
  • Simon Frazier, Advokat (baritone )
  • Detective, police officer and coroner ( speaking roles )
  • Residents of Catfish Row, fishing, children, dock workers

Porgy and Bess [ pɔ: ɡɪ ] is an opera in three acts by George Gershwin, with a libretto by DuBose Heyward. The song lyrics are by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin's brother. The opera portrays the lives of African Americans in the Black settlement Catfish Row in Charleston around 1870.

  • 4.1 complete recordings
  • 4.2 edits

Action

Act I

In Catfish Row, a residential street for blacks, beggars and criminals, the people dancing on summer evenings to the piano. Clara sings a lullaby Summertime for their child. The handicapped Porgy appears on his little cart. Porgy asked about the frivolous Bess. This appears with the hulking, violent Crown. The men sit down to game of dice for money. A dispute arises and Crown stabs the Catfish Row residents Robbins and flees. Before the police arrive, Porgy Bess left alone now provides the help and shelter.

Second Act

Later: The fishermen are planning an excursion and a picnic on Kittiwah Iceland despite the stormy weather. Porgy knows no financial worries, he is happy in a relationship with Bess. Sporting Life Bess tries to persuade her to go with him to New York, where supposedly waiting for a better life, but Bess refuses - she wants to stay with Porgy. She breaks with Mary on a picnic of fishermen. On the island Bess meets Crown, who keeps hiding there and forfeited him again. She disappears with him into the forest. Bess returns ill until two days later from the picnic and admits over Porgy that she can not resist Crown. During a storm Crown appears who wants to take Bess.

Act Three

Crown sneaks into the night to Porgy's apartment to kidnap Bess. Porgy stabs him in the back. From the police Serena is accused of murder, but she protested her innocence. Porgy refuses to identify the body, and is then held in contempt of the law for a week. Then Bess succumbs to the drug again and follows Sporting Life to New York. On his return Porgy Bess no longer finds and sets out to look for them in New York.

Formation

The opera was commissioned by the Theatre Guild 1933-35, although Gershwin was the novel Porgy (1925 ) DuBose Heyward fascinated by 1926 ( based on the novel his wife Dorothy Heyward also wrote a Broadway play, which was successfully listed in 1927, and the can be regarded as a direct presentation of the opera's story ). After a sneak preview at the Colonial Theatre in Boston on 30 September 1935, the opera with Todd Duncan and Anne Wiggins Brown in the title roles on October 10 at New York's Alvin Theatre its Broadway premiere. However, the production was only moderately successful. Only a second series of performances since 1942 in New York and the European premiere in Copenhagen (1943, against the resistance of the Nazis ) their guaranteed success. 1952-55 was followed by a world tour with Leontyne Price in the title role and Cab Calloway as Sportin ' Life. In the film adaptation of the 1959 Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis Jr. played

Music

The New York Times described the piece as " American Folk Opera ", which is to be expressed, that Gershwin has introduced many elements of American music (but without using the original music of the African American residents ). According to the will of the Gershwin piece must only be performed by blacks (except for concert performance ).

George Gershwin made ​​a special point to have composed with Porgy and Bess not a musical, but an opera, and in fact the piece is the operas of the verismo very close, both through the use of through-composed bulk form as well as its realistic milieu drawing. Nevertheless, the piece is stylistically by using the folksy become Spiritual, blues and jazz elements on the edge of the musical.

Many tunes from Porgy and Bess such as I Loves You, Porgy, I Got Plenty o ' Nuttin' Summertime or have become jazz standards. The latter is one of the most popular and most played songs ever and has been recorded by countless musicians.

Discography

Complete recordings

Edits

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