Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 14, 1992 TAG: 9202140204
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
PORGY AND BESS
"Porgy and Bess," which will have its Roanoke Valley premiere before a sellout concert audience at the Roanoke Civic Center Auditorium on Monday, has outlasted critical ambivalence and racial controversy to claim a place among the classics of 20th-century American music.George Gershwin's opera is about romantic innocence and betrayal among the poor blacks of a Charleston, S.C., neighborhood called Catfish Row. Porgy is a crippled beggar, and Bess is the woman of casual virtue whom he loves but loses to the lures of drugs and big-city life.
The story is told in carefully observed vernacular, the composer having sojourned extensively among the people of coastal South Carolina, and blends jazz and spirituals with the conventions of opera and symphonic writing. It provided no easy handle for critics to grasp, and their response was understandably mixed when "Porgy and Bess" opened in New York's Alvin Theatre on Oct. 10, 1935, and ran for 124 performances.
While some critics admired it, others wrote it off as a "hybrid" or "an aggrandized musical show." Composer/critic Virgil Thomson seemed to cover both angles, calling it "crooked folklore and halfpenny opera" but "a work that has considerable power."
It wasn't until the late 1930s and early '40s - too late for Gershwin, who died in 1937 - that a series of revivals began to establish the work's reputation. Worldwide acclaim started to build with an international tour that lasted from 1952 and until 1956.
Even that was not free from controversy, according to William Warfield, who sang the part of Porgy during the first months of the tour. "Some said it wasn't the show to send abroad because it showed blacks at their worst," the 72-year-old baritone said by telephone from his home in Champaign, Ill. "I never went along with it. They didn't realize what they were dealing with was a piece of art. Storyline was never the point in opera."
What did matter, he said, was the quality of the music and performances, and those were greatly admired by audiences in Italy, Austria, the Soviet Union, England and other stops during the tour.
Among those whose careers were given important boosts by the tour were soprano Leontyne Price, who was Bess to Warfield's Porgy (and his real-life wife from 1952-72), and jazz artist Cab Calloway, who played the part of Sportin' Life.
"Porgy and Bess" has continued to be criticized periodically for racial stereotyping - Duke Ellington spoke scornfully of its "lampblack Negroisms" - but the music itself has steadily grown in stature.
" `Porgy and Bess' is grand opera in the highest sense and belongs in the world's great theaters," composer/critic Ned Rorem wrote in Opera News magazine when the work was first presented by the Metropolitan Opera in 1985.
Warfield agrees. "It's a major, major American work," he said. "People are looking at it as a full-fledged opera, which it always was. There is no doubt that it has reached maturity and is a fine opera."
Nearly four hours long in operatic form, "Porgy and Bess" requires a full orchestra, elaborate sets and a large chorus in addition to an accomplished African-American cast. Because of the immense physical and financial demands of the opera, it often is truncated in performance or presented in concert form.
The Roanoke performances will be of the concert version, which still is being promoted as one of the largest collaborative undertakings in area musical history. It involves Opera Roanoke, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, the Roanoke Valley Choral Society and Voices of Roanoke, with the latter two combining in a chorus of some 150 voices.
There will be nine guest soloists.
The score has been shortened by the omission of certain songs and orchestral passages, but Opera Roanoke executive director Judith Clark said, "It holds together. All the big favorites are there."
Among them are "Summertime," "Bess, You is My Woman Now," "A Woman is a Sometime Thing" and "It Ain't Necessarily So."
Clark said most of the recitative (sung dialogue) also has been omitted, although there will be enough to make the story clear. There will be a plot synopsis in the program.
Sherman Ray Jacobs, making his Roanoke debut, will sing the part of Porgy. His Bess will be North Carolina native Elizabeth Graham, who has done the role with Houston Grand Opera and the Seattle and Memphis symphonies.
Crown, the story's villain, is to be sung by Stephen Finch. He has performed the role with six opera companies in the past four years. Ronald T. Smith will be Sportin' Life. Other soloists are Carolyn Sebron as Serena, Lisa Edwards-Burrs as Clara, Heather Meyers as Maria, Richard Hobson as Jim and Gary Fulksebakke as Mingo.
Victoria Bond is conducting. She is artistic director of Opera Roanoke and conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. The chorus was prepared by Jeff Sandborg, director of the choral society.
The entire production is being underwritten by Marion Via, a longtime patron of the orchestra and of Opera Roanoke, in memory of the conductor's father. Dr. Philip Bond died in January 1991.
The performance sold out last month. In response to the continuing demand for tickets, officials opened the Sunday-evening dress rehearsal to a limited audience of 1,000. Those seats sold out last week.