Hollis Alpert chronicles genesis of `Porgy and Bess’

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PORGY AND BESS, by Hollis Alpert, Alfred A. Knopf and Co., 354 pages, $35.

American operas have not fared too well, either in their native country or abroad. “The Pipe of Desire,” “The Canterbury Tales,” “Susanna,” “The Ballad of Baby Doe,” “Vanessa” — all have come and gone without leaving much imprint on the repertory. The one flaming exception is George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” — and there has been controversy as to whether that piece is a true opera. It has spoken dialogue, of course, but so do “Die Zauberflote” and “Carmen.” And, like these other landmarks of opera, it is streaked with superb arias, “Summertime,” “The Buzzard Song,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “My Man’s Gone Now” among them.

Like any great art form, “Porgy” was a long time in its gestation. And it is the genesis of this wholly American opera that Hollis Alpert so absorbingly chronicles in “The Life and Times of Porgy and Bess.” Although it started to grip the American public on the Broadway stage, it came of age when it was given the red-carpet treatment at the Metropolitan Opera House a few seasons ago. Unlike most native American operas, it has been revived to immense acclaim.

It started life back in 1925 as a novel by Charlestonian DuBois Heyward, who had long been acquainted with the Negro life of his city. The story, quite potent for its time, tells of the love of the crippled Porgy for the beautiful Bess, a prostitute hooked on drugs. For a time his faith in her buoys her spirit, but when seduced by Sportin’ Life, Bess reverts to her old life and runs off to New York. Without the faintest idea of where New York is, Porgy, heartbroken, takes off after her on his cart pulled by a goat. When Porgy sang his plaint “I’m on My Way” at the premiere, there was not a dry eye in the theater.

In its theatrical guise, “Porgy” (transformed into a play by Dorothy Heyward) came at a propitious time when there were a number of plays about Negro life on Broadway — “Green Pastures” and “The Emperor Jones” among them. Perhaps even more than that, Broadway was then host to some outstanding plays, such as “The Royal Family,” “Her Cardboard Lover” with Jeanne Eagels and “Dracula” with Bela Lugosi, not to mention Gershwin’s own shows like “Strike Up the Band” and “Funny Face.”

When Gershwin got down to the actual writing, he resisted any impulse to include merely traditional folk materials since he wanted it to be all of a piece. Indeed, he wanted to invest it with the color of “Carmen” and the dramatic intensity of “Boris Godunov.” Responsible for the lyrics were his brother, Ira, and DuBose Heyward, but so melded were they that one could scarcely pinpoint what each man’s contributions were. In any case, Ira gave his lyrics a rhythmic thrust, whereas Hayward clothed his in poetic touches as in the immortal lullaby “Summertime.”

Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, the premiere on Oct. 10, 1927, drew out New York’s leading critics. In the cast were the young Juilliard student, Anne Brown, Frank Wilson and Ruth Elzy as Serena. Alexander Smallens conducted. It was just one more event in a sensational period marked by the Atlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh, the home runs of Babe Ruth, the death of the flamboyant Isadora Duncan, the iron muscles of Jack Dempsey and the film “Flesh and the Devil” with the immortal Garbo. And there was that other imperishable show with its strong ethnic overtones: “Showboat.”

Interestingly, when RCA Victor agreed to record highlights from “Porgy,” the management insisted on using two white Metropolitan Opera singers: Helen Jepson, soprano, and Lawrence Tibbett, baritone, rather than the original singers who were not so well-known.

There were crises along the way as when Anne Brown refused to sing in the nation’s capital so long as black people were barred from the theater. Nonetheless, “Porgy and Bess” has triumphed wherever it has played — and that has been from Moscow and Warsaw to Berlin and London. There was even a production in Milan’s hallowed La Scala Opera House in February 1955. But it really didn’t come of age or achieve total respectability until the Metropolitan Opera mounted it a few seasons ago to huge critical success. “Porgy and Bess” with its galaxy of deathless melodies is here to stay.

Robert H. Newall is a free-lance writer who resides in Hampden.