X-Nico

7 unusual facts about Porgy and Bess


Adolph Achille Gereau

The officious character Police Officer Adolphus in the 1939 novel Star Spangled Virgin by DuBose Heyward author of Porgy and Bess is a humorous interpretation of his personality.

Bollington Festival

The music programme was aimed at all tastes: a concert version of Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess and two performances of Jonathan Doves’s opera Tobias and the Angel; a symphony concert; jazz with the Big Chris Barber Band, the Royal Northern College of Music Jazz Collective and Dave Mott; and folk with the New Rope String Band.

George Lessey

Lessey also appeared in the original Broadway production of Porgy and Bess (1935) in one of the few white roles, that of the lawyer Mr. Archdale.

Ray Thomas

Their first album, The Magnificent Moodies, yielded a #1 UK hit (#10 in the US) with "Go Now." The album also featured Thomas singing lead vocals on a cover of George and Ira Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So", which was originally from the musical Porgy and Bess.

The Diahann Carroll Show

Guests on the premiere episode included Telly Savalas and Sammy Davis, Jr (with whom Carroll sang a medley of songs from Porgy and Bess).

The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is an album by American jazz group the Modern Jazz Quartet performing the score to George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess recorded in 1964-65 and released on the Atlantic label.

Virginia Mixson Geraty

She also wrote the script and served as the dialect coach for the award-winning film Gullah Tales in which the characters speak entirely in Gullah, and she served as a consultant to the BBC production The Story of English. Geraty translated the libretto of Porgy & Bess into Gullah and produced her version of the famous musical for audiences in Charleston.


Bess, You Is My Woman Now

This song comes from the Gershwins' opera Porgy and Bess (1935) where it is sung by the main character Porgy and his beloved Bess.

Bithiah

In the well known song "It Ain't Necessarily So" from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, the character Sportin' Life expresses skepticism about the veracity of several Biblical stories, including this one: "Li'l Moses was found in a stream/Li'l Moses was found in a stream/He floated on water/Till Ol' Pharaoh's daughter/She fished him, she said, from dat stream".

Brown Opera Productions

In the past BOP has done scenes from many operas and operettas, including Porgy and Bess, The Magic Flute, Norma, The Threepenny Opera, Candide, and Monsieur Choufleuri.

Cape Town Opera

Notable international productions include performances for the opening of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Puccini's Turandot with NorrlandsOperan, a 2005 European tour of Jerome Kern's and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat, and performances of Porgy and Bess with both the Welsh National Opera and NorrlandsOperan in 2006, and Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2008.

Delores Ivory Davis

She has performed in the Broadway musical Porgy and Bess as Serena and in the televised performance of Treemonisha as Monisha alongside Obba Babatundé.

Earl Wild

His Grand Fantasy on Airs from Porgy and Bess, the first extended piano paraphrase on an American opera, was recorded in 1976 and had its concert premiere in Pasadena on December 17, 1977.

Evelyn Simpson Curenton

She has been commissioned to write works for the American Guild of Organists, George Shirley, the late Duke Ellington, and her sister, the late Joy Simpson, arranged music for Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, and the Porgy and Bess Chorus of the New York Metropolitan Opera, and has performed with musical organizations such as Philadelphia's National Opera Ebony (later renamed Opera North).

Folly Island

In the summer of 1934, composer George Gershwin and author DuBose Heyward, went to Folly Island to work on their American folk opera, Porgy and Bess.

Gwen Shepherd

Shepherd was one of the actresses to play Maria in the famous 1977 Houston Grand Opera production of Porgy and Bess in the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House.

Harold Cruse

Cruse viewed the arts scene as a white-dominated misrepresentation of black culture, epitomized by George Gershwin's folk opera Porgy and Bess and Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun.

Marquita Lister

During August 2011, Lister sang the role of Serena in Porgy and Bess at Tanglewood.

Marvis Martin

Marvis Martin is an African-American operatic soprano, best known for her concert performances and recitals, including her renditions of Joseph Canteloube's Songs from the Auvergne, and of Bess in Bobby McFerrin's touring concert version of Porgy and Bess.

Music Is

Cox was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical but lost to Clamma Dale in Porgy and Bess, and Hewitt and Ben-Zali were nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical but lost to Ken Bichel, Michael Mark, John Miller, and Joseph Saulter, who shared the award for I Love My Wife.

Orchestral percussion

Gershwin's Porgy and Bess remains the most requested xylophone excerpt at auditions, with Copland's Appalachian Spring, Kodály's Háry János Suite, and Kabalevsky's Colas Breugnon being other common choices, although the list is practically endless.

Roy Glenn

His other film credits include The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Carmen Jones (1954), Porgy and Bess (1959), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Claudia McNeil, and a memorable turn as Mr. Prentice (again playing opposite Poitier) in the 1967 feature film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Second Childhood

#"There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) 5:27

Sylvan Levin

He notably led the U.S. State Department sponsored European and South American tours of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess from 1954 to 1956.

The Joy of Music

(One of these conversations contains Bernstein's thoughts on Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, a work he never conducted or recorded.)

Tibor Kozma

He began his career there working as a conductor and vocal coach for Broadway productions, notably conducting Porgy and Bess and Eva Le Gallienne's production of Alice and Wonderland.


see also

Cunningham Piano Company

Also, one of America's greatest composers, George Gershwin, used a Cunningham Piano to write his opera "Porgy and Bess" in Folly Beach, South Carolina.

Hope Clarke

Porgy and Bess was written by a white composer, George Gershwin, for an all-black cast.

John W. Bubbles

In 1963, in a studio recording of Porgy and Bess featuring Leontyne Price and William Warfield, he performed Sportin' Life's two main arias from the opera, "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "There's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York".

Myra Merritt

She was to appear with that company many times through 1991, including appearances in L'enfant et les sortilèges (as the Fire, directed by John Dexter), the Centennial Gala (the duet from Don Giovanni), La bohème (as Musetta, opposite Plácido Domingo), Les contes d'Hoffmann (as Antonia, conducted by Julius Rudel), Porgy and Bess (as Clara), L'italiana in Algeri (as Elvira) and Don Giovanni (as Zerlina).

The Phoenix Singers

He numbered among his credits Broadway appearances in "Show Boat", Carmen Jones", "Finian's Rainbow" and "Porgy and Bess". Member of The Belafonte Folk Singers and The Phoenix Singers. Appeared with Belafonte on many concerts over the years, notably heard as background voice in "Try To Remember".

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Notable descendants include Duncan Clinch Heyward, twice elected Governor of South Carolina (1903-07) and 1937 published author of “Seed of Madagascar”, which relates the story of his rice-planting family; and DuBose Heyward, whose 1920’s novel and later stage play “Porgy”, portrayed blacks without condescension, and was transformed by George Gershwin into the popular opera “Porgy and Bess”, an American musical masterpiece.