{"id":1777,"date":"2020-06-12T15:09:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T19:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1777"},"modified":"2020-06-12T15:57:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T19:57:34","slug":"porgy-takes-a-knee-porgy-and-bess-and-the-american-experience-of-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2020\/06\/porgy-takes-a-knee-porgy-and-bess-and-the-american-experience-of-race.html","title":{"rendered":"Porgy Takes a Knee &#8212; &#8220;Porgy and Bess&#8221; and the American Experience of Race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PVh04MrsQUA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s interesting that Gershwin chose as his protagonist a person who\u2019s on his knees. \u2018Taking a knee\u2019 has never been more relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s Kevin Deas, a distinguished exponent of Gershwin\u2019s Porgy, talking a few days ago on <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.postclassical.com\">PostClassical Ensemble\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> \u201cPorgy and Bess Roundtable\u201d zoomchat alongside another eminent African-American singer: George Shirley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about it the last couple of days,\u201d Deas continued. \u201cThere is an automatic sense of empathy with someone who is on their knees. It\u2019s the difference between walking up to Bess with a cane [or a crutch, as in the current Met production], and actually viewing the world from below. I\u2019ve done concert versions of&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em> with the New York Philharmonic, with all the major orchestras in this country. But it wasn\u2019t until I got on my knees [acting the full role abroad] that I understood Porgy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the same two-hour chat, Angel Gil-Ord\u00f3\u00f1ez and I were joined by Conrad L. Osborne, a supreme authority on opera in performance, and Mark Clague, who heads the Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan. Bill McGlaughlin, who hosts our PCE webcasts, presided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We auditioned an unforgettable 1935 performance of \u201cOh Bess, Oh Where\u2019s My Bess\u201d by Lawrence Tibbett \u2013 whom Conrad plausibly called the greatest of all American singing actors. Moreover, Tibbett was a singer with extensive experience performing popular songs (including spirituals) in dialect. (On another occasion, Osborne observed that Tibbett&#8217;s Porgy sounds &#8220;blacker&#8221; than that of Todd Duncan, who created the role.) You can hear that great Porgy performance, and the response it engendered, on the video clip at the top of this blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHow do you feel about a white baritone singing Porgy?\u201d Bill asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>George Shirley \u2013 the first African-American tenor to be assigned leading roles at the Met \u2013 responded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you can sing it, if you can make it believable with your voice with honesty, as I believe Tibbett does, then sure. I believe music belongs to everybody. And that if I\u2019m going to sing the Duke in&nbsp;<em>Rigoletto<\/em> I\u2019ve got to sing it with respect for the style, the music, the history. And if someone can sing Porgy who\u2019s not black and approach it with respect, then of course he can sing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin Deas: \u201cYes, music doesn\u2019t belong to any one group. I\u2019ve been fortunate that most of the music I do comes from the European tradition. So I\u2019d hate to think that my color would disqualify my from that repertoire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conrad asked: What about make-up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>George Shirley: \u201cTheater is theater. When you go to the theater, you know you\u2019re not in Paris. It\u2019s called the suspension of disbelief. That\u2019s what the costume person is about, the wig mistress, the make-up. You use it. Opera is first of all about the voice: to make you believe through the singing. If the singer can do that, and move you, that voice has a right to move you on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin Deas: \u201cI feel a lot is being lost in the modern operatic world because the priority is looks. Think of all the amazing sounds that would have been lost if you had to look pretty.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>George Shirley: \u201cI would rather sing&nbsp;<em>La traviata<\/em> with Montserrat Caballe [as he did] than with someone who looks like they\u2019re dying of tuberculosis, and sounds like it. I sang a lot of&nbsp;<em>Salome<\/em>s with Birgit Nilsson. She didn\u2019t look like Salome, but she could sure make it sound like Salome. Let me share with you an incident&nbsp;&nbsp;. . . \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019d like to know about the incident in question, involving a prominent New York music critic who objected that George Shirley didn\u2019t \u201clook the part of a French nobleman\u201d in Massenet\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Manon<\/em>, click on the video at 16:12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About an hour into our chat, the singer\/teacher Susan Gregory commented:&nbsp;&#8220;I loved hearing Tibbett sing Porgy. But I would not buy a ticket to see him on the stage \u2014 because of the times we live in. My fellow artists, who are black, barely can find work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>George Shirley: \u201cWhen asked in the past how do I feel about&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em> being reserved for blacks, I\u2019ve said: fine \u2013 as long as black artists are [equally] considered for roles that are normally considered \u2018white.\u2019 Until that happens, I would say that restriction should stay in place.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin Deas: \u201cI agree with George, absolutely. It provides income for a lot of my colleagues. We just have to change the industry. If anything comes out of the George Floyd tragedy, I hope that all of culture, including those people in charge of presenting opera, will take a broader, more inclusive look at African-Americans being part of it. I never thought that I was any less qualified to sing a Mozart role than a blond kid from Iowa. But when you walk on stage, the first thing that identifies you, sadly, is: \u2018There\u2019s a black singer.\u2019 And you can\u2019t get around it. I never thought that would be something that would be of any concern for me. But I know that\u2019s the initial reaction: \u2018Oh, he\u2019s singing in German.\u2019 It\u2019s like: Why are you here?\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gershwin Estate has long insisted that, in honoring the wishes of the composer, only African-American singers should be cast in&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em>. Recently, the ban was controversially violated by the Hungarian State Opera. There have been other productions in Eastern Europe with white singers. So far as I am aware, the first Russian performance of&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em> (Russians having long pursued a love affair with Gershwin) took place in 1945 \u2013 with Russian singers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It bears mentioning that a crucial trajectory in the opera \u2013 that of a cripple made whole \u2013 transcends race. That this redemption parable (which invites comparison with Wagner\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Parsifal<\/em>) is rarely clinched in present-day performances is a problem I have persistently belabored \u2013 as in my&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theamericanscholar.org\/porgy-and-bess-at-the-met\/#.XuLK5y2ZM_U\"><strong><em>American Scholar<\/em> review<\/strong> <\/a>of the Met&nbsp;<em>Porgy and Bess<\/em> last season.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To see Lawrence Tibbett sing (and act) &#8220;De Glory Road&#8221; (one of his signature numbers), click <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VAd_enTLYUY\">here.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To watch PostClassical Ensemble\u2019s More than Music film \u201cThe Russian Gershwin\u201d (with a one-of-a-kind &#8220;Rhapsody in Blue&#8221; plus historic recordings), produced by Behrouz Jamali, click&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NR_2b3_EpY0\">here.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To see Kevin Deas sing the spirituals of Harry Burleigh in PCE\u2019s More than Music film \u201cDeep River: The Art of the Spiritual,\u201d click&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sk1WqzAdHYA\"><strong>here.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>PostClassical Ensemble\u2019s next More than Music film, to be released July 5, will be<\/em> <em>\u201cFDR\u2019s New Deal and the Arts<\/em>: &#8216;<em>The Plow that Broke the Plains&#8217; and &#8216;The River&#8217;<\/em> &#8212;<em>&#8211;What can they teach us today?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The follow-up Trans-Atlantic zoom chat, on July 9, will address government arts funding during the pandemic in the US and abroad. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For more information on \u201cMore than Music,\u201d including zoom chat registration, click&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/postclassical.com\/performances\/postclassical-more-than-music\/\">here.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s interesting that Gershwin chose as his protagonist a person who\u2019s on his knees. \u2018Taking a knee\u2019 has never been more relevant.\u201d That\u2019s Kevin Deas, a distinguished exponent of Gershwin\u2019s Porgy, talking a few days ago on PostClassical Ensemble\u2019s \u201cPorgy and Bess Roundtable\u201d zoomchat alongside another eminent African-American singer: George Shirley. \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-sF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1777"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1789,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777\/revisions\/1789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}