The First Great American Opera

Available for 29 days

Donald Macleod explores the origins and difficult evolution of George Gershwin’s long-awaited opera Porgy and Bess. In 1926 friends gave George Gershwin a copy of a novel called Porgy by DuBose Heyward. It was set among the labourers and stevedores of Charleston, South Carolina. Gershwin sat up all night reading Porgy and in the morning wrote to Heyward to suggest they develop it into an opera together. It would be almost ten years before that work came to the stage. But when it did, in the shape of Porgy and Bess – the story of the inhabitants of Catfish Row and the love affair between the beggar, Porgy, and a young prostitute, Bess – it became Gershwin’s final great work, lauded by many as the First Great American Opera. They Can’t Take that Away From Me Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong Jasbo Brown Blues Richard Rodney Bennett, piano Summertime London Philharmonic Orchestra Simon Rattle, conductor Glyndebourne Chorus Harolyn Blackwell, soprano It Ain't Necessarily So (arr. Heifetz) Randall Goosby, violin Zhu Wang, piano Bess, You is my Woman Now Charles Lloyd, alto sax Jason Moran, piano Catfish Row Suite Gewandhausorchester Leipzig Riccardo Chailly, conductor Stefano Bollani, piano Rhapsody in Blue George Gershwin, piano roll recording