Porgy and Bess

The most prominent American opera of the 20th century, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess is recognised for its moving portraits of adversity and tenderness, even as it has raised questions about its racial portrayals. Gershwin, a lifelong New Yorker and the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, was an unlikely figure to adapt DuBose Heyward’s novel Porgy, about the lives and struggles of a segregated fishing community near Charleston, South Carolina. But the composer researched it eagerly: he spent a summer outside Charleston, visiting churches and studying the local Gullah culture. Working with his brother Ira Gershwin, he developed memorable songs including the jazz- and blues-tinged “Summertime”, “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and “I Loves You, Porgy”. The plot involves a disabled beggar named Porgy and his struggles to rescue Bess, the woman he loves, from her drug dealer and her violently possessive boyfriend. Since its Broadway premiere in 1935, Porgy and Bess has been hailed for providing work for generations of Black singers—thanks to the Gershwins’ requirement that companies cast only Black performers—though some contend that it has pigeonholed them. And while some listeners may recoil at the approximations of Black dialect, the opera has brought a uniquely American story to global stages. Porgy has spawned a 1959 film version and interpretations of its songs by such jazz pioneers as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis.