Where Did Porgy and Bess Come From?

Abstract

In 1924, Metropolitan Opera board chairman Otto Kahn proposed that the yet-to-be-written Great American Opera might well be a “jazz opera.” Eleven years later, George Gershwin's engagement with Kahn's idea came to fruition in Porgy and Bess (1935), set to a libretto by DuBose Heyward, based on Heyward's novella Porgy (1925) and his play of the same name staged in 1927. Several months before Porgy was published, Gershwin had already decided that a work of Kahn's description would have to be written for a black cast. Gershwin and Heyward, two white men, revealed through their collaboration not an exploitative impulse but an understanding that the wellsprings of an American operatic art might lie as much with the performers as with the creators.

Broken Windows, Broken Promises

“…Moreover, the call and response of Griot storytelling provided comedic relief for slaves, as many times, the stories were jokes made at the slaver's expense. Ultimately, Griot storytelling through call and response served an integrating function, promoting a sense of unity and community among the slaves (Crawford, 2006;Stewart, 2005). It also served as a living, breathing commentary to their lived experience of oppression and subordination-it provided them a voice.…”

Politics and race in American historical popular music: contextualized access and minstrel music archives

“…Print journalism of the day was rife with satirical and otherwise denigrating imagery of African-Americans in product advertisements, cartoons in newspapers and magazines such as Harper's Daily, and later even in opera. George Gershwin's Blue Monday, called a jazz opera when it was composed in 1922, was originally performed in blackface by white singers (Crawford 2006). In 1929, New York's Metropolitan Opera staged Jonny Spielt Auf, complete with its title character sung by a white singer in blackface.…”