UNIT 4
Video and Audio Links
1. Glyndborne Production of Porgy and Bess, directed by Trevor Nunn

2. Carolina Shout by James P. Johnson

3. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, Spiritual sung by Barbara Hendricks

4. Picnic and It Aint’t Necessarily So – Sportin’ Life with Damon Evans as Sportin’ Life,
Glynborne production

5. My Man’s Gone Now – Serena with Latonia Moore from the Metropolitan
Operahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSlrAasnBxo
6. Beth You is My Woman Now – Porgy and Bess with William Warfield and Leontyne
Price https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1jf9IfVYEA&list=PL2hhzrakkVkppVWQCEgeVY9IDVEoqnYK&index=3
7. I Loves You Porgy, Bess and Sportin’ Life with Leontyne Price

Reading
Andre, Naomi, ed., Blackness in Opera, Brown, Gwynne Kuhner, “Performers in
Catfish Row, Porgy and Bess as Collaboration,” pp. 164-180.
Blackness
in Opera
Edited by
NAOMI ANDRE,
KAREN M . BRYAN,
AND ERIC SAYLOR
UNIVERSITY OF
ILLINOIS PRESS
Urbana, Chicago,
and Springfield
© 2012 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
C 5 4 3 2 i
©This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Publication of this book was supported by grants from the
Henry and Edna Binkele Classical Music Fund; the Office of the
Vice President for Research at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor; the Publications Endowment of the American Musicological
Society, supported through the National Endowment for the
Humanities; and Friends of Drake Arts, Drake University.
Frontispiece: Inigo Jones, costume for daughters of Niger,
The Masque of Blackness. © Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth.
Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blackness in opera / edited by Naomi Andr£, Karen M. Bryan,
and Eric Saylor.
p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-252-03678-1 (hardcover: alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-252-09389-0 (e-book)
1. Blacks in opera. 2. Opera.
I. Andrt, Naomi Adele. II. Bryan, Karen M. (Karen McGaha).
III. Saylor, Eric.
ML1700.B53
2012
782.108996—DC23
2011027787
8
Performers in Catfish Row
Porgyand Bess as Collaboration
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
The current revival of the musical “Porgy and Bess” now at
the Ziegfeld theater in New York is the most insulting, the
most libelous, the most degrading act that could possibly be
perpetrated against colored Americans of modern times.
—james Hicks, “We Don’t Need
Porgy
and Bess
In the decades-long debate over Porgy and Bess, those offended b
its depiction of African Americans have occasionally characterized the oper
as a crime against the race. Some have called the work itself harmful, such £
playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who noted that African Americans have ha
great wounds from great intentions.”1 Others, including Harold Cruse in h
oft-quoted book The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, have viewed the opera £
problematic because it enables whites to control and profit from black artistry
n some cases, a particular production of Porgy and Bess caused offense; this w<
the position of critic James Hicks who, in the quotation that opens this essa
excoriated the U.S. State Departments plan to support an international tour <
the opera in the early 1950s. Each of these arguments casts African Americar
as die victims of malevolent or thoughtless white actions.
espite a broadening consensus that its librettos depiction of African Amer
Z fiZ
tL fc
bCSt’ P°rgy “nd Bess has
yearS;
ists tnlrTr’^Tr1″” °PeraS’
role that A f ‘
A
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™™nted repeatedly over d
survived, let alone established itself as one <
C0uld n0t have
without the
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support it offstage. The indispensable, ac»
Perf0rmers have
Played in every critically suc«*
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tha’theWOf
GWYNNEKUHNERBROWN
165
In choosing to perform this opera, singers shoulder a difficult task. Porgy
and Bess is an extremely challenging work requiring wide vocal ranges, great
physical stamina (due to the work’s length and the size of its orchestra), and the
ability to sing persuasively in musical styles ranging from folk to Broadway to
grand opera. Alongside the artistic challenges, performers of Porgy and Bess face
a unique array of pressures and risks. Even at the time of the first production
in 1935. when many black reviewers lauded the new Gershwin opera as a rare
and exciting opportunity for its cast members, the performers were privately
criticized by fellow African Americans for validating white stereotypes of black
life.3 Anne Brown, the first Bess, recalled, “When my father saw the premiere,
the first performance of Porgy and Bess in New York, he was very disappointed
and very sad that Negroes had been pictured in the usual cliches, as ignorant
and dope peddlers and users and criminals and superstitious—all those things.
He said, ‘We’ve had enough of that.” By the 1950s, critics in the black press were
saying
the same thing publicly, and there was increasing pressure on performers
not to take part in the opera. James Hicks, for example, wrote that those who
could not find roles less demeaning to African Americans might be better off
shoveling coal” than performing onstage.1
Ironically, the reason that the black press initially welcomed Porgy and Bess—
because it provided a venue for African American performers to demonstrate
their operatic abilities and advance their careers—has often proved illusory. Leontyne Price is a rare example of a major opera star whose career was launched
by her role in Porgy and Bess; for other performers, the opera has been a frus­
trating dead end. In a 2005 interview conducted by the present author, a dra­
matic soprano whose resume is heavy with appearances in Porgy and Bess as
Serena reported that opera directors do not always view the Gershwin work as
a real opera, and thus do not think to cast its performers, however superb, in
more traditional operatic roles. She found this remarkable: “I would think just
listening to Porgy and hearing the music, you can tell someone’s voice type, if
their voice could sing an Aida or a Turandot, or sing a Tosca. You can tell-the
music is very revealing.”5
why, then, given the clear risks and dubious benefits, do performers take
Part in Porgy and Bess? The reasons vary, but for most, the draw is the work
itself. Despite its flaws, Gershwin’s opera offers performers a fascinating an
beguiling score, musical and dramatic challenges, uncommonly complex char­
acters, and even, to some performers, a personally resonant story o a
ac
community.6 Porgy and Bess also provides the rare chance to be one African
American cast member among many, a situation that many singers find a con­
genial change from the norm. And although its efficacy as a stepping-stone to
coles in canonic European operas is questionable, Porgy and Bess does otter
i66
PORGY AND BESS A S C O L L A B O R A T I O N
black opera singers the opportunity to perform, which no aspiring professional
can afford to take lightly.
There are compelling reasons, then, for black performers both to take part
in the opera and to keep clear of it. The continuing existence of Porgy and Bess
onstage is contingent on their willingness to take part despite the risks, since
George Gershwin specified that it was to be performed by African Americans,
and his brother Ira and the Gershwin estate have enforced this stricture for
all American productions following Georges death. For the work to succeed
critically, however, performers must do far more than merely take part. Because
many music critics view Gershwin as a magnificent melodist who was out of
his depth as an opera composer, performances of Porgy and Bess must be suf­
ficiently compelling to justify the works length and its stylistic heterogeneity.8
At the same time, critics’ concerns about the librettos racial issues are eased
only it black performers demonstrate an unwavering artistic and personal com­
mitment to the opera.
Several postwar productions of Porgy and Bess have managed to bring to­
gether performers with the necessary combination of daring, artistry, skill, and
enthusiasm to generate critical success. These productions share an important
feature: a positive, collaborative relationship between the performers and the
director. A director must acknowledge and value the power that performers
wield over Porgy and Bess, for it is they who determine a productions fate, and
ultimately that of the opera itself. If performers do not feel that they have the
directors respect, nor that they are empowered to help shape a production,
the risks involved in participation can lead them to defend themselves by giv­
ing guarded performances or by withholding advocacy for the opera during
interviews and in statements to the press. As this essay will demonstrate, this
imperative was established in 1935, when Porgy and Bess was created via col­
laboration between the composer and the Theatre Guild cast members. The
productive and respectfiil relationship that developed between them provides
a model that directors of subsequent productions have ignored at their peril-
Collaboration and the Theatre Guild Production
Given Gershwin’s career as a Tin Pan Alley songwriter and Broadway composer,
it is not surprising that Porgy and Bess, his most ambitious work for the stage,
was created in cooperation with those who would first perform it. His attitudes
and working methods had been shaped by the commercial songwriting busi­
ness which required flexibility and openness to the ideas of others, including
producers, directors, and stars.
When he undertook Porgy and Bess, Gershwin brought not only his prod.g,ous talent, skill, and experience as a stage composer to the task, but his
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
•
167
willingness and ability to collaborate. From his first letter to DuBose Heyward
in 1926 to his participation in cutting the score after the Boston tryout in late
1935. Gershwin created his magnum opus in consultation with others. He knew
his own strengths and limitations, and his famously high self-esteem did not
prevent him from recognizing and drawing upon other peoples strengths as
needed. As the operas longtime choral director Eva Jessye put it, “A man can
think about himself or as well of himself all he likes as long as he doesn’t think
everyone else adds up to a big nothing.'”‘
In casting the Theatre Guild production, it is clear that Gershwin sought out
performers who had a good deal of presence and confidence—who would, in
short, actively help to shape the production. Todd Duncan’s description of his
initial private audition reveals that he was bold, confident, and even somewhat
prickly in his first
interaction with the composer:
[Gershwinl stopped me after twelve measures of “Lungi dal caro bene
twelve
measures! And he said, “Will you go around there? Do you know this by mem­
ory?” “Of course I know it by memory, I sing everything by memory, I replied
rather indignantly. He said, “Look straight in my eyes. Don’t look anywhere else,
look straight in my eyes.” I sang the same twelve measures and he stopped once
again! So I’m thinking, “What is wrong with this man? Why wont he just let me
sing this aria?” And he said, “Will you be my Porgy?” Now guess what I had the
nerve to say?… I said, “Mr. Gershwin, I have to hear your music first.” Oh, he
loved it! He just loved it!10
Although the character of Porgy has sometimes been construed as a way foi
whites to get a black man on his knees (literally as well as figuratively),
the
tact that Todd Duncan’s assertiveness and confidence so appealed to Gershwin
demonstrates that he did not conceive of Porgy as a deferential
Uncle Tom.
Duncan’s willingness to look directly into Gershwin’s eyes while singing is par­
ticularly noteworthy: this would have required tremendous concentration and
unflappability from anyone, given Gershwin’s fame, but particularly from an
African American raised in a segregated society.
Anne Brown’s audition story is similarly revealing:
I sang a French aria by Massenet, several German lieder, Russian songs in English,
even a Gershwin melody. And George Gershwin was full of praise. And then he
asked me to sing a Negro spiritual. Well, unless one is nearly as old as 1 am and
has lived in the United States before the Second World War and understood the
insidious damage racial prejudice can afflict on both the victim and the racist, it
may be difficult to understand my reaction at that moment. I said, “Well, weren’t
you satisfied with what I sang?” And he said, “Yes, of course, it was lovely-beau­
tiful.” “But why do people always ask Negro singers to sing spirituals as if that
is the only thing that they should be singing and not German lieder or French
168
•
PORGY AND BESS AS COLLABORATION
arias.” I was very much on the defensive. George Gershwin simply looked long
at me and he said, “Ah huh, I understand.” And I realized that he did understand
and then I wanted more than anything else to sing a spiritual for him.12
There can be no doubt that it took an honest effort for Gershwin to win over
his desired lead performers: Brown and Duncan were sensitive about not being
taken seriously as black opera singers, and Duncan was also skeptical about Ger­
shwin as a serious composer.13 Gershwin succeeded by showing them respect as
people and as artists and by convincing them of the high quality of his opera.
Gershwin had long customized his Broadway songs to suit the styles and tal­
ents of celebrities like Fred Astaire and Ethel Merman, and he remained respon­
sive to the individuals who performed his opera, despite their relative obscurity.’4
Duncan recounted, “I loved singing the role of Porgy and after Gershwin had
heard me sing, he tailored the part for my voice. Some of the music had already
been written but once he knew my sound, everything just seemed to fit so well.
The composer also welcomed cast members’ contributions and permitted them
to take liberties with their parts. According to Anne Brown, Gershwin “never
objected to changes in his music. When Ruby Elzy, for example, embroidered
[Serenas] prayer with all sorts of ornamentation, he smiled and said, Thats
wonderful, keep it in.'” Helen Dowdy recalled how Gershwin “flipped” over her
unique way with the strawberry vendor’s cry in act 2, scene 3.15
Although Gershwin respected the insights and creativity that the cast mem­
bers brought to their roles, he did not expect them to have a specific under­
standing of the characters’ Gullah culture simply because they were African
Americans. Anne Brown remembered that “at the rehearsals George occasionally
complained that many of the people in the cast had unfortunately been born
in the north. Everyone laughed at this since many of us had not even visited
the south. Some of us were college students and didn’t know the dialect of the
southern Negro.”16
Because Gershwin had more firsthand experience with Gullah dialect than did
most in his cast, he coached them on it from time to time. Some commentators,
not aware of Gershwin’s extensive contact with Gullah people, have taken this
coaching as evidence of arrogance and insensitivity: not only did he have the
nerve to appropriate black culture, but he even thought he could teach black
people how to “sound black”! Music historian Jeffrey Melnick, for example,
c aracterizes Gershwin’s activity this way: “By the time of the 1935 rehearsals
or Porgy and Bess, as many witnesses have recounted, the idea of a Jewish man
eac ing an African American how to sing authentically ‘Negro’ was no longer
a joke: George Gershwin spent time tutoring his mostly northern cast in how
to capture the proper southern Black dialect he wanted to match to his music- ‘
N e t ^ H 8 l ‘ 5 ‘ ‘ ” c t h ! ” m a ” y W h i t e s o f G e r s h w i n ‘ s t i m e c o n f l a t e d authentic
Negritude with southern black culture (often filtered through the lens of black’
GWYNNEKUHNERBROWN
•
169
face minstrelsy), I know of no evidence that Gershwin thought he was teaching
his cast “how to sing authentically ‘Negro.'”18 He was, however, aware that his
cast members did not share the opera characters’ particular background. In
my view, his willingness to teach his cast reflects, in addition to an astonishing
degree of confidence and unself-consciousness, a rare sensitivity to the diversity
of African American culture. Unlike many who would review the opera over the
coming decades, Gershwin was fully aware that his performers were engaged
in artifice, not a re-creation of their own lives.19
The composer’s respect for his cast members as individuals can best be seen in
his very different working relationships with Anne Brown and John W. Bubbles,
who played Sportin’ Life. Their professional backgrounds were extremely dis­
similar: Brown was a Juilliard-trained but inexperienced young classical singer,
Bubbles a musically illiterate star of the vaudeville stage. While completing the
score, Gershwin drew regularly on Brown’s knowledge of operatic vocal ranges,
as well as on her ability to sight-read freshly composed sections of the score.
She described her role in the opera’s creation:
I think that no one—other than his family and those strictly connected with the
opera—had a closer association and contact with George Gershwin while he
was writing Porgy and Bess than I did. Maybe Kay Swift did but that was from
another point of view. He used me as a guinea pig and he tried everything and
he would ask me, “Is this too high for a baritone?” “No, no, not if he doesn t stay
up there too long,” I would say. “How’s this, should I change this note?” “No, no.
As a matter of fact, I’d like to do it higher,” would be my answer. I even made a
few changes in “I Loves You Porgy,” notes which fit my voice better and he would
say. “That’s good, let’s use that.”20
It is clear from Brown’s reminiscences that Gershwin relied upon her expertise
and also enjoyed her friendship.
He does not seem to have been personally as close to Bubbles, but the two
men collaborated productively, albeit in a strikingly different way. The performer
recalled how he learned his part:
Everybody [in the cast] but [my vaudeville partner Ford] Buck and me had
finished the conservatory of music. They all had a musical education. But Buck
don’t read and I don’t read. By ear. That’s how we did it.
I learned all of the numbers in Gershwin’s apartment. He taught me the songs
himself. We just sat side by side on the piano bench, and he played and I sang. .. •
I think some of the others in the cast were worried some about how I
o
because I hadn’t the fine training they had. But Gershwin was satisfied. He knew
1
7116
could do it.21
image of Bubbles and Gershwin sharing a piano bench, together with the
Performer’s sense that the composer had faith in his abilities, paints a compelling
170
PORGY AND BESS
AS COLLABORATION
picture of their relationship. Bubbles may not have felt at ease with his fellow
cast members, but he did with Gershwin.
The composers productive and positive relationships with these performers
and others in the cast may be traced to two important factors. First, the unusual
path Gershwin’s career had taken, from Tin Pan Alley to the operatic stage, en­
abled him to approach both Anne Brown, who knew more about some aspects
of opera than he did, and John Bubbles, whose expertise in “lowbrow ” theater
mirrored his own, with an understanding of and respect for their different gifts.
Second, there is ample evidence that Gershwin was remarkably unconcerned
about the racial difference between himself and African Americans—from his
eager participation in Gullah music making on Folly Island (noted with aston­
ishment by his white South Carolinian librettist, DuBose Fleyward) to his rather
remarkable assumption that he could write a perfectly good folk opera about
Catfish Row.22 Once he had demonstrated his lack of prejudice to the Theatre
Guild cast, racial difference did not present an insurmountable barrier to their
productive collaboration.
Since Porgy and Bess came into being as a result of this productive interracial
relationship, there is some irony in the operas racially divisive reception over
the past seven decades. The common assumption that the work has consistently
been a source of racial contention rather than collaboration (or at least conver­
sation) is a mistaken one, as the relationship between Gershwin and the cast of
the Theatre Guild production attests.23
That said, it would be no less erroneous to gloss over the negative aspects
of that relationship. Gershwin’s lack of self-consciousness with regard to race,
while enabling him to interact comfortably with African Americans, also made
him insensitive at times. Variety quoted him offering this blundering praise for
the cast: Colored people are natural actors and natural singers, and they can
be assembled for a reasonable salary. Who could afford a cast of white people
equal in ability, and could they sing eight times a week?”24 The power differential
between the famous composer and the performers is made very plain by the
tendency of white reviewers in 1935 to focus their attention on the achievement
of the former and to praise the latter en masse (and often as an afterthought) ”
Moreover, not every member of the Theatre Guild production staff developed
as healthy a relationship with cast members as did Gershwin. Music director
A exander Smallens famously tried to have John Bubbles thrown out in the
middle of a dress rehearsal for taking rhythmic liberties with the score, and
Anne Brown recalled that while the white staff members regularly socialized
with each other, only Gershwin regularly spent time with members of the cast
outs.de of rehearsals, welcoming them into his apartment, dining with them *
restaurants, and attending their parties.26
Despite the inevitable complications, the performers were, on the whole, enor­
mously fond of Gershwin, as is evident in their reminiscences about him.2′ After
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
•
YJl
his death in 1937, they were eager to take part in the (ultimately flood-truncated)
West Coast revival mounted by a friend of the composer, producer Merle Armitage. The latter writes that “Todd Duncans respect and affection for George
made my later invitation to sing Porgy a foregone conclusion, and Todd Duncan
was the first to arrive for rehearsals in Los Angeles.” Duncan was not alone in
his willingness, says Armitage: “Most of the former company [was] so enthused
about an opportunity to play Gershwin’s music drama again that many members
of the cast actually turned down other offers, or took leave from engagements,
in order to be with us.”28 Those involved in the production felt a strong commit­
ment to Gershwin, and to the opera that they had had a part in shaping.
Making Performers (Un)comfortable: Five Case Studies
Most productions of Porgy and Bess have been affected by some degree of ten­
sion in the relationship between white directorial staff and black performers.-”
TTe inherent power imbalance between these two groups, coupled with the
racial controversy about Porgy and Bess, makes it essential that each director
communicate openly with the cast about his or her intentions for the produc­
tion. Directors who have provided a compelling artistic vision, and who have
reassured cast members that they are both aware of and interested in counter­
acting the operas potentially offensive racial content, have typically fostered
positive relationships with performers. When a director fails to take these steps,
the critical reception tends to suggest that performers have withheld their full
artistic and personal engagement from the production, with predictable results.
No production was more hampered by disastrous relations between produc­
tion staff and cast than the Samuel Goldwyn film of 1959- A number ot factors
contributed to the films poor publicity, mediocre finished product, and ultimate
withdrawal from public view, not least among them the fact that the height of the
civil rights movement was an inauspicious time to make a glorious Technicolor
film about Catfish Row.30 Goldwyn struggled to cast the film, even resorting to
arm-twisting in his efforts to get Sidney Poitier to play Porgy.” Neither Poitier
n°r
Dorothy Dandridge, who played Bess, talked much to the press before
the film’s release, leaving it to Sammy Davis Jr. (Sportin Life) and Pearl Bailey
(Maria) to reassure the public that the film was coming together smoothly and
that it would not denigrate African Americans.
William Warfield, who turned down the invitation to provide Poitiers singing
Vo’ce
on the soundtrack (for little recognition and “insultingly unacceptable
Pay), later described the film as being “conceived in bitterness and hostility—
between the original stage producer, Robert Breen, and Samuel Goldwyn; and
then
the
of
between Goldwyn and his director, Otto Preminger; and then between
tyrannical director and his browbeaten cast.” Contemporary press accounts
the film’s production offer glimpses of dysfunction behind a carefully man-
172
PORGY AND BESS A S C O L L A B O R A T I O N
aged public relations campaign. Cast member Leigh Whipper (also president
of the Negro Actors Guild) called Preminger “a man who has no respect for
my people” and left the production. Pearl Bailey worked to excise “undigni­
fied and unnatural” dialect from the film, taking it upon herself to reprimand
lesser-known cast members when they erred, and commenting publicly that
Preminger had “said right at the beginning that if there was something we didn’t
like—just leave it out.”-2 This may have been a striking concession of control
on Premingers part, but it also suggests that he did not view Baileys concern
about dialect as requiring his attention.
The film displays a similar combination of sensitivity and thoughtlessness.
It presents a visually and linguistically sanitized version of the opera, thereby
heading off criticism for depicting an African American community as squalid
and debased, but there is no evidence that Preminger considered how incongru­
ous the plot (saucer burial, happy dust, and all) would seem in its cleaned-up
new surroundings. Wrote the reviewer for one New York newspaper,
Director Otto Preminger may very well have deliberately shunned any repre­
sentation of sleaziness inherent in the story. Beggar Porgy, for example, is not
once seen crying for a copper. Nor are the slop and debris of the tumbledown
locale ever shown. The sets are stark and dramatically impressive, but there are
no traces of dirt.
Poitier seems kindly cheerful instead of despondent, and Dorothy Dandridge
appears a bit too physically genteel to essay the hard-eyed strumpet Bess. This is
not a reflection on either players performance, however, since both are sincere
in the commercial fashion which Preminger has set out for them.33
Other critics were less charitable about the performances, with one complain
ing of rather flaccid dialogue spoken without much spontaneity or conviction
by many of the characters.”” The most controversial performances came from
Dandridge, viewed as touchingly vulnerable by some reviewers but as overl)
refined by others, and Sammy Davis Jr., who “suggested] too strongly a sophis­
ticated entertainer aping a small-town rascal,” according to one critic.35
The films uneasy admixture of impressive scenery, colorful costumes, and
gritty plot, of glamorous performers and earthy characters, shows that Goldwyn, Preminger, and the cast never reached any sort of mutual understanding
or common goals. (Only Pearl Bailey is a truly warm and relaxed presence in
e him, and even negative reviews single her out for praise.) Open discourse
and cooperation might have defused the defensiveness and mistrust palpable in
e him and its surrounding publicity, resulting in a bolder and more persuasive
cinematic version of Porgy and Bess. Given the problems inherent in releasing a
ig-budget film widely viewed as containing badly dated caricatures of African
Americans, it is equally plausible that frank dialogue might have revealed to all
o t le participants just how unwise the project was in the first place.36
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
•
173
A decade and a half later, in a very different atmosphere, producer Sherwin
M. Goldman’s desire to see Porgy and Bess given a full operatic staging at the
Houston Grand Opera resulted in a tremendously successful production. The
sharp contrast between the 1959 films stilted performances and mixed recep­
tion and the enthusiasm with which the Houston production was greeted is a
credit to the latter s director, Jack O’Brien, whose open communication with the
performers gave them a sense of safety that had clearly been lacking on Preminger’s film set. From the beginning, O’Brien was frank about his own anxiety
and hopefulness:
1 walked into that rehearsal hall and for a moment I felt very white indeed. Iheres
always a moment of chill at the first rehearsal, even if you’ve cast the show your­
self. I was nervous—I’d never done anything with an all-black cast before—even
though I believed that “Porgy” was not a put-down of blacks, written by whites,
but a moving story about people who happen to be black. I was determined to tell
the truth about the show as I felt it, in terms of how it dealt with love, jealousy,
death and adversity. What a revelation! The company went with me all the way.3
What resulted was a production that firmly reestablished Porgy and Bess as a
full-fledged opera, after thirty years of productions that had presented the work
as a musical with most of the recitative replaced by spoken dialogue.38 By taking
the work seriously as an opera and as a story with universal resonance, O’Brien
earned the trust and commitment of the performers. He also welcomed their
input,
particularly that of Clamma Dale, who played Bess to ringing critical
acclaim. Although Goldman says that he and Dale “argued endlessly from the
Very
beginning of their professional relationship, it is clear that her personal,
feminist approach to the character of Bess (“She has somehow, as most black
women always have had, an ability to survive”) played an important role in
shaping the production and how it was received by the press.3′ She gave numer­
ous interviews in which she spelled out her thoughts about Bess and about the
opera, acting very much as a spokesperson.1″ This reflects both her own intense
engagement
with the opera and the degree to which the cast was empowered
to take ownership of the production.41
file stories of two subsequent productions drive home the importance of
healthy relationships between performers and directors with particular force,
the Metropolitan Opera’s1985 mounting and the production at the Glyndebourne
Festival less than a year later. Both productions were prestigious and expensive
and featured experienced and capable casts and directors. It is clear, however,
that the Met’s cast had a less harmonious relationship with the production team
than did the performers at Glyndebourne. Even the casting was contentious.
Simon Estes, who was particularly known for his work in Wagner operas, a
P’ayed Porgy already in Zurich, and found it satisfying and challenging. He ha
no qualms about playing the role at the Met, but was concerned about whether
174
•
PORGY AND BESS
AS COLLABORATION
the other African American artists who were cast in Gershwin’s opera would be
seriously considered for future Met roles. In James Standifer’s 1999 documentary
about Porgy and Bess, Estes describes having a conversation with an unnamed
administrator who became increasingly angry when he pressed her for more than
weak assurances that the male cast members, in particular, would be cast again.'”
Damon Evans, who played Sportin’ Life in the Glyndebourne production,
turned down the Met when they offered him the role there, for exactly that
reason: I did say no to the Met s production of Porgy and Bess. Yes, I did, and
you know something? Its the one decision in my life that I have never regretted.
… I saw too many brilliantly talented black singers go into the Met doing Porgy
and Bess and shown the exit sign as soon as it was over, and I knew that would
never happen to me. If I never set foot on their stage, that was never going to
happen to me.”43
Grace Bumbry, like Simon Estes, had built an international reputation play­
ing major canonic roles in Europe. Unlike Estes, she had never appeared in
Porgy and Bess and was unenthusiastic about taking part. She claimed that she
ultimately accepted the role of Bess because she did not want the production to
go on without her: “It took me about four months to decide. I said to myself, as
the Metropolitan Opera didn’t ask me could they do ‘Porgy and Bess’ and the)
are going to do it with or without me and since I’m often complaining about
productions not being done well, I decided it would behoove me to accept so
I could put my input into this wonderful piece of music.”44 Although Bumbry
said that she had recognized the operas greatness upon studying its score, and
had “gone from reluctance to acceptance to gung-ho,” she played a far smaller
role in the extensive publicity leading up to opening night than did her costar
Simon Estes, who expressed no reservations about playing Porgy. A lengthy
New York Times article offers extensive quotations from several cast members,
but strikingly few words from the famed female lead.45
The Met production received mixed reviews, and Bumbry s performance was
the most consistently criticized element. Several reviewers said that she was too
o d for the role, but I strongly suspect that the real problem was that while she
may have come to respect the score, she never lost her distaste for the story, and
so was unwilling to immerse herself in her role.46 Instead of playing Bess, she
seemed to some to play Grace Bumbry playing Bess, with what more than one
reviewer perceived as self-conscious irony. According to the New York Newsshe approached her characterization with “indifference” and “transform[ed]
rshwins simple, heartfelt melodies into grotesque imitations of Bumbry’s
mannered Strauss and Verdi princesses.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette praised
er singing but said that “her histrionics were nothing short of disastrous.. • •
amping around like a parody mixture of Tosca and Dalila, she seemed to have
for N ‘ v°! 6 Wr0n^ °Pera» ar|d her final exit, wiggling her hips as she leavtS
for New York… was pure high camp.”47
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
•
175
These critical comments display a degree of animosity toward Bumbry that
do not stem solely from her performance as Bess. She had long been a contro­
versial performer for taking on both soprano and mezzo-soprano roles, and
for reputedly being difficult to work with. Bumbry s reflections during a 2001
interview offer some insight into the obstacles she faced in her career:
Of the challenges of being a black artist, Bumbry says,”That is very private to me,
and I have spent my life going back and forth about it. And some people said,
‘Oh, she’s black and pushy—that’s why they’re hiring her. And others said, ‘Oh,
she’s black—let’s not hire her.’ And whenI sang Schubert and Liszt and Brahms
… they said, ‘Sing spirituals, don’t be so pretentious.’ And whenI sang spiritu­
als and tried to do it in a way that wasn’t slick, they said, “That’s all she can do,
and she’s crude! A real artist sings Brahms and Liszt!’ And when directors and
conductors would come along,I would see they were unprepared and didn t care.
For my first Eboli, I read the play, all the history, looked at paintings and went
over and over the music. I can count on one hand the conductors or directors
who knew as much. One said to me, ‘You are an overachiever, not a natural tal­
ent.’ How was I to take that? Act like a cleaning woman and shut up? So maybe
I fought, sometimes unwisely.”48
Bumbry’s words shed light on her sometimes contentious relationships with
directors and conductors. They also suggest an explanation for her reluctance
to appear in Porgy and Bess and for her guarded performance: having fought
for more than two decades for respect as an African American performer of
European operatic roles, she hesitated to commit herself fully to a role com­
monly seen as a racial stereotype.
If the entire production had been characterized by the kind of deliberately
distancing performance given by Bumbry, one might imagine that it resulted
from an innovative, ironic directorial concept. Since no one else in the cast took
a
similar approach,however, this seems unlikely. Instead, Bumbry s metaphori­
cally “off-key” performance indicates a breakdown in communication between
her, director Nathaniel Merrill, and music director James Levine. The directors
may or may not have been aware of Bumbry’s lingering discomfort with the li­
bretto and the character of Bess, but apparently they failed to address its impact
on her performance.
A comment made by Merrill before the production opened reveals something
about his attitude and suggests why this communication breakdown may have
occurred: “The opera has passed into a piece of Americana, where we can look
at it objectively, and not feel that we have to apologize for it. I dont think any
°f the cast feel that they need to be apologized to for the opera anymore.
u I wo
Points bear underlining. First, the phrase “passed into a piece of Americana
Intimates that Porgy and Bess has become safe, even quaint, with the passage
of time-a directorial perspective unlikely to inspire cast members about the
176
•
PORGY AND BESS AS COLLABORATION
work’s artistic value or contemporary relevance, and which seems to have done
little to assuage Bumbry’s concerns about its libretto. Second, Merrill subtly
gives away a critical distinction in his mind between himself and the performers—and,
unavoidably, between whites and blacks—because the “we” in his
statement is actively engaged in “look[ing] at it objectively and “not feel[ing]
that we have to apologize,” while the cast members (“they”) are passively (and
purportedly) no longer desirous of “be[ing] apologized to.” Moreover, Merrill
implies that the racial innocuousness of this period piece is demonstrated by
blacks no longer expecting whites to apologize for it, a rather simplistic view of
the works racial content and its potential significance for African Americans. It
these comments by Merrill accurately reflect his views on the work and the cast,
it may help to explain why he did not effectively communicate with Bumbry,
and why she gave a guarded and unsympathetic performance.
In contrast to the Met directorship, which seems to have been unaware of the
necessity of doing so, Trevor Nunn and Simon Rattle fostered an atmosphere of
openness and cooperation in the 1986 Glyndebourne production of the opera.
Director Nunn, echoing the sentiments of Houston Grand Opera director Jack
O Brien ten years earlier, relates that he immediately acknowledged to the cast
the awkwardness of being a white British director of Porgy and Bess: “The first
thing thatIsaid [in rehearsal] was, ‘I feel like an impostor. You all know much
more about this work thanI do. I’m going to need your help and guidance con
stantly.”’50 This was an invitation to dialogue, not an apology, and it bore fruit.
Music director Simon Rattle shared this approach. Nunn describes an incident
that shows Rattle’s willingness to engage and empower the chorus, typically the
least powerful contingent of an operas cast:
There was something about the train spiritual [in act 1, scene 2] that a number
of people felt, We re toppling over, we’re rushing, it isn’t feeling right.” I talked to
Simon about the fact that it would be good if people were able to say what they
wanted, and at a certain point Simon came up out of the pit and everybody ^aS
ere, and he said, Um, talk to me, first of all, about the problem,” which lots of
people did. And he said, “Okay, what can we do? Okay, look-I’ll just give you
a downbeat… then show me….
Tins was such an unusual event.I mean, here was an internationally famous
conductor saying, “Show me.” And he did, and thechorus were completely sensan . It was like, This we have to prove.” Now, unconducted,Imean absolute!)
nothing dictating what was holding them together, they sang that vast unit of
the work, but so movingly and absolutely immaculately, and together, like they
were one singer.51
‘he directors’ openness, the performers were moved to invest
emselves fully the production and Nunrfs concept for it. As WillardWhite.
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
•
YJJ
who played Porgy, put it, “There was tremendous excitement there at the point
of rehearsal. Everyone on stage felt a certain commitment about what they were
doing, because Trevor Nunn had managed to weave into the whole piece, the
whole presentation, a clarity as to who you are.” The New York Times reported
that the first rehearsal ended with the cast in tears, not only (the reporter hy­
pothesized) from being caught up in the music and the story, but also because
they must have known they were part of a rare experience: a production that
redeems an artistic vision, rescuing it from doubts, bringing it to life.””- The at­
titude that the directors brought to the rehearsal process surely facilitated the
performers’ openness to the work.
Many reviews of the Glyndebourne production emphasized the uninhibited
quality of the performances—a quality that earlier generations of white critics
had often perceived as typically characteristic of black people, but was now un­
derstood to be the product of individual artistry and courage. Nicholas Kenyon,
writing for the Observer, noted that Porgy and Bess was now being performed
with fantastic commitment and accomplishment by a cast who demonstrate not
the slightest qualms about its problems and a conductor with not the slightest
doubt about its musical stature.” This commitment was reflected in the compel­
ling emotional frankness of the performances, particularly by the leads. Opera
magazines Max Loppert wrote that Willard White and Cynthia Haymon “had
me in tears throughout ‘Bess, you is my woman now: such direct displays of
naked tenderness, of painful self-exposure to new, deep emotion, are rare on
any stage.”53 This was clearly the work of performers who held nothing back,
who did not feel that their personal integrity or professional standing was en­
dangered by full immersion in Gershwin’s work.
1° J995> when a production in the United States was at last directed by an
African American, the need for the director to bridge the racial divide between
herself and the cast was eliminated. Hope Clarke approached a new Houston
Grand Opera production as what she called a “joint effort with the cast. We
put our recipes into the pot.”54 The communal spirit that she brought to her
relationship with the cast seems to have been counterbalanced by a degree of
all
antagonism toward Porgy and Bess itself, particularly toward its performance
and reception history. Being the first black director of an American production
°f the work, Clarke was expected to bring a fresh perspective, an expectation
founded on the implicit assumption that Porgy and Bess was flawed by its w
creators’ and directors’ limited perspective on black life, and that an African
American director (however remote her own background from Cat is
would be able to remedy this problem.””
Clarke’s comments to the press frequently emphasized the ways in w
ic
er
production was different from previous ones. She highlighted t e pri
‘ndustriousness of Catfish Row’s inhabitants, noting that “in my production,
i78
PORGY AND BESS
AS COLLABORATION
everybody works…. Just because you are poor doesn’t mean you have to be
slovenly or ignorant.”56 Even Porgy the beggar carved little African figurines out
of wood to give to his “donors.”57 The cultural specificity of the Gullah commu­
nity was important to Clarke, and she drew on a cast member who had Gullah
relatives to assist the other performers with the dialect.58
Press accounts portrayed Clarke’s approach to the new Houston production
as not only correcting decades of misguided decisions by other directors, but
improving the opera itself. According to Rebecca Morris of American Theatre
magazine, Clarke “feels the show’s language needs attention. T think that’s one
of the things black people don’t like,’ she says, referring to the stylized dialect.
It sounds a little like the speech of totally uneducated, stupid black people. Its
supposed to be Gullah. It’s not. We will be absolutely Gullah if we can achieve
it.” Clarke’s words hint at animosity toward the work, and reporters highlighted
this attitude, even though many of her directorial decisions seem to have built
on, rather than contradicted, elements of the original opera. For example, her
use ol African drums onstage during the picnic scene was very much in the
spirit of Gershwin’s score, but a newspaper account suggested that Clarke was
incorporating cultural components that would have been alien to the com­
poser: Clarke justified her African emphasis on the better understanding we
now have of the Gullah community that inhabited the Sea Islands off the coast
of the Carolinas and Charleston. … Although Gershwin spent time with [li­
brettist DuBose] Heyward in Charleston while he was composing the opera, it
is unlikely that two whites could have gained access to the inner circles of the
Gullah community.59 In fact, according to Heyward s own recollection, Ger­
shwin closely listened to, and participated in music making with, the Gullah
inhabitants of James Island during his time in South Carolina.60
Articles about the production make scant mention of what might have at­
tracted Clarke to Porgy and Bess in the first place; she is quoted on more than
one occasion calling the work, or at least the music, “great” or “brilliant,” but she
is not quoted elaborating further.61 Morris writes that “Clarke candidly admits
she hopes Porgy and Bess will lead to directing on Broadway and at the Met,
indicating that she viewed it as a professional stepping-stone.62 It is admittedly
difficult to glean precisely what Clarke thought or said about Porgy and Bess
from the way she and the production were written about in the media. It may
be that her opposition to certain aspects of the opera made for a better story
than did her admiration for it.
Still, Clarke’s ambivalence about the opera did not prevent her from inspiring
the performers; on the contrary, and unlike many other directors, she seems
to have had a tar less ambivalent relationship with the cast than with the work.
She said in one interview, “I told the cast, ‘We’re going to laugh all the way to
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
179
the opening,’ and we did.” This is curiously incongruous with the serious tone
and content that characterize much of the opera, but certainly paints a picture
of a pleasant rehearsal process. Clarke went on to tell the interviewer, “We’ve
emphasized the elements of musical theater, and it seems more like a play than
an opera.”65 The statement is telling both for her use of the first-person
plural—
unlike the Met’s Nathaniel Merrill, Clarke does not differentiate between herself
and the cast—and for her assumption that a non-operatic approach to Porgy and
Bess is desirable.64 Clarke’s approach implicitly offers a critique of the work on
both generic and racial grounds, seeking to make it at once more entertaining
(that is, more theatrical, less “operatic”) and more culturally accurate. The result
was a production that was, by most accounts, compellingly and wholeheartedly
performed and likely would have pleased the composer better than a less
imaginative production like the Met’s in 1985.65 Despite the antagonistic flavor
of some of her comments, the spirit of Clarke’s work with her cast was true to
Gershwin’s own approach in 1935.
fhere are good reasons to resist viewing Porgy and Bess as an opportunity for
productive interracial collaboration. Because the racial playing field is not (and
has never been) level, Porgy and Bess can easily be seen as an example of white
profiteers engaging in the degrading commodification of African American cul­
ture. As music historian Ray Allen writes of the first production, Gershwin and
Heyward were about the business of transforming white fantasies of black sensuality,
spirituality, and violence into a commodity that was marketable as entertain­
ment for primarily white audiences. In spite of the fact that a stellar company of
black artists, rather than a band of blackface minstrel buffoons, was recruited to
breathe life into the production, the exploitative nature of the white composer/
black performer could not be easily dismissed.”66 Allen raises an important pointfr°m
its creation by white artists to its profitable perpetuation of “white fantasies
about blackness, Porgy and Bess is inherently problematic, regardless of how it
ls
directed and performed. The very fact that directors must try to ameliorate
the work’s problems by opening the door to dialogue and partnership with cast
members is a reflection of its (thus far) inescapable racial baggage. Moreover, it
is
significant that directors must take the active role in initiating a collaborative
relationship; although every successful production relies on performers’ creative
and
personal engagement with the work and its staging, there is an innate power
differential between directors and casts, which in the case of Porgy and Bess has
a,m°st
always been compounded by racial difference.
Nonetheless, the history of Porgy and Bess is not simply one of white vic­
timizes and black victims. African Americans have actively engaged with the
w°rk
from the beginning: helping to create and shape it in a variety o way ,
t3king roles or refusing them, and deepening American societys understand-
180
•
PORGY AND BESS A S C O L L A B O R A T I O N
ing of its various meanings through analysis, criticism, and commentary. Most
fundamentally, Porgyand Bess relies on African American performers to accept,
inhabit, and essentially complete the work. This completion was begun in direct
collaboration with George Gershwin, and continues today.
Notes
I gratefully acknowledge Geoffrey Block, Larry Starr, and Sue Neimoyer for their feed­
back on drafts of this paper.
1. Pitman, “Lorraine Hansberry Deplores Porgy.”
2. “To attack [Porgy and Bess J, one must see it in terms of something more than mere
content. It must be criticized from the Negro point of view as the most perfect symbol
of the Negro creative artists cultural denial, degradation, exclusion, exploitation and
acceptance of white paternalism.” Cruse, Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 103. Cruse spe­
cifically attacks Jewish Americans (such as Gershwin) for their exploitation of Atrican
American culture. Recent books that address the role of Jewish musicians as mediators
of African American culture for white audiences include Melnick, A Right to Sing the
Blues; and Most, Making Americans.
3. For two examples ot the enthusiastic early response in the black press, see Floyd
J. Calvin, “Five Broadway Spots Set New High Record for Race Performers,” New York
Age, 7 December 1935; and “Porgy and Bess,” Afro-American, December 14. i935»na
tional edition. On the topic of the black press’s positive coverage of the cast members,
see Allen and Cunningham, “Cultural Uplift and Double-Consciousness,” 35i”564- Standifer, “Porgy and Bess”; James Hicks, “We Don’t Need Porgy and
Bess,”
Afro-
American AFRO Magazine, March 28,1953. For another example, see the editor’s note
at the end of Golf Dornseif, “Cab Calloway Overseas,” Afro-American AFRO Magazine,
February 28,1953.
5- Interview by the author, November
3)
2005.1 am grateful to this artist, who pre-
erred to remain anonymous, for allowing me to interview her. For more on the topic 0
Porgy and Bess as a potential dead-end for African American singers, see Oby, “Equity
in Operatic Casting,” 24.
6 Given the controversy over the libretto, performers publicly make this last point
the least often. One of those who has been frank in her admiration for the librettos de­
piction of black life, however, is Maya Angelou, who appeared as a chorus member an
t”‘”*” ^e,R°ber’ Breen-dir*c 1 9 5
GWYNNE KUHNER BROWN
183
35- Hatch, “Films.”
36.
Samuel Goldwyn had expected the film of Porgy and Bess to be among his most
significant legacies as a producer. He had long admired Gershwin and his opera, and
the success he and director Preminger had scored in 1954 with Carmen Jones, another
prestigious musical with an African American cast including Pearl Bailey and Dorothy
Dandridge (the first black woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Actress), seemed to bode well for Porgy. Carmen Jones is discussed in Melinda Boyd’s
essay in the current volume. For more on Goldwyn’s expectations for Porgy and Bess,
see Berg, Goldwyn: A Biography; Wainwright, “One-Man Gang”; and Kauffmann, Two
Preminger Premieres.”
37- Robert Berkvist, “The Man Who Brought New Life to Porgy,” New York Times,
October
38.
24, 1976.
The first production to trim the work of its recitative was producer Cheryl Craw­
ford’s revival of
1941-45.
That production’s enormous critical and box office success
doubtless encouraged subsequent directors to follow suit.
39- Goldman is quoted in Alpert, Life and Times of “Porgy and Bess,” 3 0 5 . Dales com­
ment is from Howard Kissel, “Broadway Black Theater: Goodnatured Politics,” Women’s
Wear Daily, August 3 0 , 1 9 7 6 .
40.
For examples of Dale’s centrality in the press coverage of this production, see Anna
Quindlen, “Clamma Dale: The Mouth That Roars,” New York Post, September
25,1976;
and Mel Gussow, “Clamma Dale Sings Way to Top,” New York Times, September 2 9 , 1 9 7 6 .
41.
Clamma Dale was clearly the most powerful cast member; the production seems
to have focused on Bess, and due to Dale’s strong personality and charisma she received
bY
far the most media exposure. All the same, the other cast members did not consider
themselves less integral to the production. Said Robert Mosley, who played Porgy in
some performances, “Tfie secret of this production is that everybody depends on every­
body else. We had our problems with Bess in New York, but we got things back together
onstage by working things out offstage. This isn’t a case, as so many operas or musicals,
°f just one person in his own little bag doing his own thing.” Thomas Willis, Ifie Black
Experience Takes Rich Root in a Hit Porgy and Bess,” Chicago Tribune, April 10,197742. Standifer, “Porgy and Bess.”
43- Ibid.
44- Joseph C. Koennen, “A Grand Entrance for Porgy and Bess,” Newsday, February
3. 1 9 8 5 .
45- Nan Robertson, “Populating Catfish Row on the Met Opera Stage, New York
Times, February 5 , 1 9 8 5 .
46. Additional evidence of Bumbry’s ongoing ambivalence can be found in a te e
vised interview in February 1985, where she claims that the story of Porgy and Bess is
acceptable insofar as it is a relic of the past and that the Met will do a fine job as they
always do (Channel 4 Today in New York, transcript from February 8,1985. Teleclips,
Luce Press Clippings, Television News Transcripts).
47. Barton Wimble, “Counterpunch:This Bess, She Ain’t My Woman,” New York News,
March 8,1985, New Jersey edition; Robert Croan, “Porgy and Bess Finally Makes t to
Met,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February
14.
1985-
184
•
P O R G Y A N D B E S S AS COLLABORATION
48. Innaurato, “Grace Ann Under Pressure,” 45. Bumbrys comments about what kind
of music she was expected to sing resonate strikingly with those of Anne Brown, quoted
earlier.
49. Koennen, “Grand Entrance for Porgy and Bess.”
50. Standifer, “Porgy and Bess.”
51.
Ibid.
52. Ibid.; Anthony Lewis, “The Music of Life,” New York Times, August 19,198653- Nicholas Kenyon, “Summertime Blues,” London Observer, July 13,1986; Loppert,
“Porgy and Bess, August 6,” 25.
54. Melinda Bargreen, “Her Version/Vision: First African-American to Stage Porgy
and Bess Gives It a Different Spin,” Seattle Times, March 12, 1995.
55. According to David Gocldey, the general director of Houston Grand Opera, From
the beginning, ‘Porgy and Bess has been a piece about black people that involved white
authors, directors and producers
I was very interested to see a production placed in
the hands of a black director.” Kenneth Herman, “Performing Arts: Porgy Gets a Cultural
Makeover,” Los Angeles Times, March 5,1995.
56. Story, “Hope Clarke,” 14.
57. Since the libretto does not call for Porgy to beg onstage, presumably his exchange
of the carvings for money would have been implied.
58. See Charles Ward, Authentic Touches: Black Porgy Director Hones Portrayal of
Catfish Row,” Houston Chronicle, January 22,1995; R- M. Campbell, “Seattle Shares m
a New Porgy and Bess, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 10, 1995.
59- Morris, Hope Clarke”; Herman, “Porgy Gets a Cultural Makeover.”
60. “I shall never forget the night when, at a Negro meeting on a remote
-island,
sea
George started shouting with them. And eventually to their huge delight stole the show
from their champion ‘shouter.’ I think that he is probably the only white man in America
who could have done it.” Heyward, “Porgy and Bess Return on Wings of Song,” ro561. Campbell, “Seattle Shares in a New Porgy and Bess.”
62. Morris, “Hope Clarke,” 53.
63. Bargreen, “Her Version/Vision.”
64. According to critic Martin Bernheimer, “The score… is presented virtually uncut,’
so t e musical theater aspect of the production was apparently more a matter ot ernph3
sis and tone than of actual editing of the score. “It Ain’t Necessarily Show,” Los Angeles
Times, June 9,1995.
65. The Houston Chronicles reviewer reported that the performers “looked at home
Hrn°^ay!tthe,r r°leS W’th comPlete authenticity.” Charles Ward, “Porgy and BessGO s Third1ry Has Measure of Charm,” Houston Chronicle, January 30, W95-1° SP?
of generally positive reviews, the production did not please David Gockley, who brought
m director Tazewell Thompson to do some midtour “tweaking.” See Lewis Segal, Its
Summertime and the Staging Ain’t Easy,” Los Ange/es Times, June 1. X99566. Allen, An American Folk Opera?” 255.
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