{"id":2956,"date":"2024-03-19T18:23:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T22:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2956"},"modified":"2024-03-19T18:23:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T22:23:31","slug":"what-if-porgy-happens-to-be-white-celebrating-the-art-of-lawrence-tibbett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2024\/03\/what-if-porgy-happens-to-be-white-celebrating-the-art-of-lawrence-tibbett.html","title":{"rendered":"What If Porgy Happens to be White? — Celebrating the Art of Lawrence Tibbett"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>
Lawrence Tibbett as Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Lawrence Tibbett as Gruenberg’s Emperor Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

George Gershwin chose Lawrence Tibbett to make the first recordings of Porgy\u2019s songs from his opera Porgy and Bess<\/em>. But Tibbett did not sing them at the Alvin Theatre \u2013 Todd Duncan (called by Gershwin \u201cthe Black Tibbett\u201d) did. Gershwin wanted a Black Porgy onstage, and Tibbett was white.  He was also the supreme American operatic baritone of his (or any other) time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An extraordinary new 10-CD set<\/a><\/strong> issued by Marston Records celebrates the art of Lawrence Tibbett \u2013 and so does my most recent \u201cMore than Music\u201d feature on NPR<\/a><\/strong>. The diversity of his achievement is staggering. And his many recordings in Black dialect are something to think about. In the opinion of John McWhorter, on my NPR show: Given Tibbett\u2019s pre-eminence as an American baritone, given his capacity to inhabit a role and excavate feeling, given his dedication to opera in English, the role of Porgy \u201cwas almost written for him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McWhorter’s recent New York Times<\/em> columns include one<\/a><\/strong> on \u201cBlack English Doesn\u2019t Have to Be Just for Black People.\u201d He takes issue with critics of the comedian Matt Rife, who\u2019s always \u201cdipping into Black English.\u201d McWhorter writes: \u201cRife is not posing or ridiculing; he\u2019s connecting. Linguists call it accommodation.\u201d The subtlety of McWhorter\u2019s argument resists summary here. But it\u2019s pertinent that Tibbett, too, is \u201cnot posing or ridiculing.\u201d Just have a listen to his 1935 version of \u201cOh, Bess Oh Where\u2019s My Bess?\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

McWhorter\u2019s NPR commentary continues: Though the notion that \u201cwhite people should be allowed to sing like Black people\u201d was \u201conce OK,\u201d today a white baritone singing and acting \u201cBlack\u201d would \u201cbe hunted to a different planet.\u201d This type of thinking, McWhorter argues, should be \u201creconsidered\u201d \u2013 Tibbett singing Porgy embodies \u201can American artform evaluable in itself [that] need not be seen as mocking.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As McWhorter happens to be a professional linguist, I asked him the most obvious question. He answered that, in the context of linguistic practice in 1935, Tibbett \u201csounds authentic to me. . . . He sounds to me like an educated Black person singing in a sincere \u2018dialect idiom,\u2019 . . . adopting a dialect in the same way an opera singer is trained to sing with a proper German accent. . . . If we told a modern skeptical Black critic to listen to one of those [Tibbett] cuts, and we told him it was a Black person, I doubt if one out of one hundred of them would be able to smoke out that they were actually listening to a white man.\u201d Nearly half a century after the premiere of Gershwin\u2019s opera, it\u2019s come time \u201cto just listen to Tibbett as a human being,\u201d opines John McWhorter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve called my show<\/a><\/strong> \u201c\u2019Wanting You\u2019: The Art of Lawrence Tibbett,\u201d referencing an American operetta chestnut, a baritone blast today mainly associated with the likes of Nelson Eddy: hearty and synthetic. Tibbett\u2019s rendering<\/a><\/strong> of this Sigmund Romberg number \u2013 which he frequently sang on the radio and in recital coast to coast — attains a startling emotional veracity. I invited Thomas Hampson \u2013 today\u2019s most famous American baritone \u2013 to have a listen. Hampson said: \u201cQuite frankly, this may be some of the most perfect singing I\u2019ve ever heard in my life. It\u2019s just breath-taking.  I know the song, I\u2019ve sung it, it\u2019s no walk in the park . . . And the way he negotiates, just technically, this expansive expression, but also with the beauty of tone . . . I mean, my goodness me, what a sound! And to think that this is what was cherished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tibbett craved the role of Porgy. But it was Gershwin\u2019s preference that Porgy be sung onstage by a Black cast \u2013 and the Gershwin Estate has maintained this prohibition, at least in the US. Late in his career, in 1953, Tibbett was signed to sing Porgy in Europe. But by then his voice was shot and he had to withdraw. He did, however, sing two roles at the Met made up as an African-American: the Black fiddler Jonny in Ernst Krenek\u2019s Jonny spielt auf<\/em>, and \u2013 a signature part \u2013 Brutus Jones in Louis Gruenberg\u2019s operatic adaptation of Eugene O\u2019Neill\u2019s The Emperor Jones<\/em>. Fleeing through a jungle, pursued by rebels, Jones sings \u201cStandin\u2019 in the Need of Prayer.\u201d Tibbett left an overwhelming 1934 studio recording<\/a><\/strong> of this number. Harry Burleigh<\/a><\/strong>, for a time the leading African-American concert baritone, heard Gruenberg\u2019s opera and wrote appreciatively to Tibbett. Tibbett wrote back: “Of all the letters of praise I received, yours means most to me, you who stand so high in the esteem of the Colored race, as well as in the esteem of my own race. You saw the inner significance of the work, and that was lacking in most everyone else’s analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Marston\u2019s Tibbett set, and on my radio show, you can also hear Tibbett singing \u201cScottish\u201d and singing Cockney, singing in French, German, and Italian, inhabiting a bewildering range of personalities and genres. \u201cHe had a chameleon-like ability, almost at a genius level, to take on . . . major identity changes,\u201d says Conrad L. Osborne<\/a><\/strong>, for more than half a century the pre-eminent English-language authority on opera in performance. On part three of my show, Osborne (who contributes a terrific 60-page booklet to the Marston box) ponders at length what makes Tibbett\u2019s story quintessentially \u201cAmerican.\u201d His training was ad hoc and sui generis; he never studied abroad. Born in Bakersfield, California, he was the son of sheriff killed in a shoot-out when he was seven. His very vocal timbre, Osborne suggests, conveyed an American \u201ccall\u201d kindred in spirit to the \u201clonesome cowboy.\u201d In fact, not only did Tibbett sing cowboy songs; he worked as a ranch hand. This range of experience mattered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the big finds in the Marston set, calibrating the range of Tibbett\u2019s genius, is a 1937 Chesterfield Hour performance of Cole Porter\u2019s \u201cIn the Still of the Night.\u201d He\u2019s not just a big voice vacationing from opera. This rendition is as personal as Frank Sinatra\u2019s or Ella Fitzgerald\u2019s. It\u2019s unique to Tibbett \u2013 his way with words, his vocal opulence, his huge dynamic range. The song was brand new in 1937, by the way \u2013 Tibbett is pitching<\/em> it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As memorable, in Marston\u2019s set, is a 1937 Chesterfield Hour performance of Jerome Kern\u2019s \u201cSmoke Gets in Your Eyes.\u201d Tibbett also frequently sang on the Packard Hour, the Ford Sunday Evening Hour, the Telephone Hour, the General Motors Hour, the Voice of Firestone. That is: on national commercial radio programs hawking cars, cigarettes, and automobile tires, he regaled a mass audience with opera, operetta, and the Great American Songbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my ears, Tibbett is unexcelled in what may be the quintessential Italian lyric baritone aria: \u201cDi provenza\u201d from Verdi\u2019s\u00a0La traviata<\/em>. In the Marston set, you can hear him sing it on the Chesterfield Hour. You can also hear him sing it in\u00a0live performance at the Met<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in 1935: the cradling legato of his dark baritone, its freedom of phrase and of cadential punctuation, are galvanizing. Singing in German, he\u2019s also the most compelling exponent I know of Wolfram, in Wagner\u2019s\u00a0Tannhauser<\/em>. That\u2019s opposite Lauritz Melchior at the Met in 1936. If you happen to be familiar with this opera, check out the third act\u2019s linchpin moment, when Wolfram\u2019s unexpected compassion ignites Tannhauser\u2019s confessional Rome Narrative; Tibbett\u2019s expression of empathy \u2013 at\u00a02:36:00\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0— is so believable that the incredulity of Tannhauser\u2019s gratitude seems wholly unrehearsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I close my radio commentary on the art of Lawrence Tibbett with a \u201cfinal thought\u201d that \u201cfeels so presumptuous that I\u2019m almost reluctant to confide it\u201d —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe tend to think of human nature as a constant \u2013 generation to generation, the same or similar thoughts and feelings. But in recent decades \u2013 decades of laptops and cellphones and social media \u2013 changes in human predilection are kicking in at exponential speed. When you consider Lawrence Tibbett\u2019s exceptional popularity \u2013 on radio, in Hollywood, in opera, in recitals in halls large and small across the United States — re-encountered, he bears witness to another time. Sure, we\u2019ve always expressed, or cloaked, our feelings differently, from one moment, or from one epoch to another.  But some of those feelings may actually wither away. Listening to Tibbett sing Cole Porter or Jerome Kern, or Gershwin or Verdi, makes me wonder how much we\u2019ve changed and what those changes may mean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t doubt that for many young people today, the opulence of the Tibbett baritone, and its operatic connotations, are insuperable obstacles. I think of how much they\u2019re missing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LISTENING GUIDE (tune in here<\/a><\/strong>): <\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00: “Oh Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2:42: “Wanting You”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4:18: Commentary by Thomas Hampson on “Wanting You”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6:40: “In the Still of the Night”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:33: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15:16: Commentary by John McWhorter on “singing Black”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21:02: George Shirley on Porgy and Bess<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

24:08: “Standin’ in the Need of Prayer” (from The Emperor Jones<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26:02: George Shirley on The Emperor Jones<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

30:15: “Di provenza” (from La traviata<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

34:40: Jago’s Credo (from Otello<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

37:35: Conrad Osborne on what makes Tibbett “American” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Gershwin chose Lawrence Tibbett to make the first recordings of Porgy\u2019s songs from his opera Porgy and Bess. But Tibbett did not sing them at the Alvin Theatre \u2013 Todd Duncan (called by Gershwin \u201cthe Black Tibbett\u201d) did. Gershwin wanted a Black Porgy onstage, and Tibbett was white.  He was also the supreme American operatic baritone […]<\/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-2956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-LG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956","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=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2968,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions\/2968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}