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HomeWales MusicPorgy and Bess: a information to Gershwin's widespread opera and its greatest...

Porgy and Bess: a information to Gershwin’s widespread opera and its greatest recordings


The yr was 1926, and it had been a busy day for George Gershwin. His new musical comedy Oh, Kay! was in rehearsal, and when the composer went to mattress that night he reached for some mild studying materials to lull himself to sleep. As a substitute he picked up Porgy, a not too long ago revealed novel by the American author DuBose Heyward.

Heyward’s spouse Dorothy reported that, removed from dozing off swiftly, Gershwin ‘learn himself unsleeping’ that night time, gripped by her husband’s darkish, gritty story of African American life within the tenements of Charleston, South Carolina. By 4 within the morning, Gershwin knew the story was ultimate for an opera, and dashed off a letter to Heyward suggesting a gathering.

Little got here of that preliminary contact. For one factor, the Heywards have been already adapting Porgy as a play, for manufacturing on Broadway a yr later. And Gershwin himself was cautious of a direct collaboration. ‘He mentioned it might be a few years earlier than he could be ready technically to compose an opera,’ DuBose Heyward recalled later.

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