Porgy and Bess, described by its composer George Gershwin ( 1898-
1937) as "a serious attempt to put in operatic form a purely Amer-
ican theme" and "a new form, which combines opera with theatre,"
began its public life in 1935 before a Broadway audience. ¹ While the pos-
sibilities of a Metropolitan Opera production had been explored, a Theatre
Guild production offered a more extended rehearsal schedule (six weeks),
many more performances, and fewer logistical problems in assembling a
large cast of operatically trained African-American singers. ² Six years ear-
lier the Met had signed a contract with Gershwin to produce an opera
based on Sholem Ansky's version of the Jewish folktale "The Dybbuk,"
but abandoned the project after Gershwin was denied musical rights to
this property. ³

After a disappointing initial Broadway run of 124 performances, Porgy
and Bess achieved a wider audience seven years later in the most successful
Broadway revival up to that time. But in contrast to the 1935 operatic form,
the 1942 revival presented a Broadway opera shorn of its operatic accou-
trements, i.e., without recitatives (sung dialogue). Although some spoken
dialogue replaced Gershwin's recitative, in the 1950s Porgy and Bess re-
gained more of its operatic form as it toured opera houses all over the
world (including La Scala).

In 1976 the work gained additional acceptance as an authentic as well
as an accessible operatic classic when the Houston Opera performed the

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