Customer Reviews

George Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess"

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Forget the overrated, overblown Simon Rattle version on EMI. This recording, based on the famous Houston Grand Opera production, is the one to have. It has all the precision and musicality of the best opera recordings, yet with the theatrical excitement, the sense of involvement, that you get in the best Broadway cast albums--in fact, this recording was made (in only three days) while the cast was busy performing this production on Broadway.

Where to start in cataloguing the virtues of this set? Well, start with the conducting of John DeMain. His pacing of the work is excellent, balancing the operatic and "popular" elements just right, and never overdoing things (unlike Rattle, who always overdoes things). The orchestra, while clearly smaller than Rattle's London Philharmonic, plays well. Donnie Ray Albert is a fine Porgy, sometimes a bit strained at the top but with generally excellent singing and characterization. Clamma Dale's Bess won her awards and acclaim; she never went on to the stardom that was predicted for her, but luckily her extraordinary performance is preserved on these discs. I could go on, but there's no need, because there are no weak performers in this cast, and they all have the ensemble feel and sense of timing that comes from performing the work on the stage together for so many evenings.

The studio sound is excellent: Producer Thomas Z. Shepard goes all-out for sound effects, atmospheric touches, and stereo movement, all of which enhances the drama and the feeling of experiencing a real performance--but with the advantages that studio recording brings.

Though this is clearly the first choice, there are other good recordings of PORGY. The 1951 recording (produced by Shepard's mentor Goddard Lieberson) is very good, but heavily cut and in mono sound. The 1969 recording under Lorin Maazel is beautifully sung, if a bit undramatic. Against all this competition, the oft-recommended Rattle seems like a distinct also-ran, for people who wish that PORGY had been written by somebody--anybody-- other than Gershwin. Anyway, this RCA recording is definitely the first choice. Grab it.

Composer Stephen Sondheim has frequently cited PORGY AND BESS as his favourite calling it "a gift from above." And indeed it is.

And you could not ask for a better recording than this lavish set from the 1976 Houston Grand Opera, lovingly translated to discs by Thomas Sheppard with the same care and dedication he brings to his original Broadway cast recordings.

This album puts you centre stage with extensive use of sound effects and creative use of the stereo spread. The cast is perfection, honed by having performed the show live several times before going into the RCA studios. It's packed with a full libretto and synopsis.

The other "complete" recordings don't measure up. London's is correct but uninspired. EMI's set is well sung but lacks theatricality. All of the elements are in perfect balance on this set.

The old Columbia 1951 album was complete in its day but musicologists have since restored much of the material cut before the Broadway premiere.

Among the highlights discs are the Decca set featuring some of the cast members from both the 1935 and 1942 Broadway productions. A 1950s CD featuring Leontyne Price and William Warfield offers the key arias in a well sung collection. Readers Digest offers excerpts in their Gershwin CD set featuring a woefully bad Porgy, Valentine Pringle.

There are also a variety of Jazz interpretations. A strange 1956 Bethlehem Jazz album with Mel Torme and Frances Faye on Rhino, a highly prized album with Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte, and albums by Sammy Davis Jr and Caremen MacRae, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis.

Sammy Davis also appeared in the 1959 Samual Goldwyn film version with Sidney Poitier and Dorthy Dandridge. The film was withdrawn from circulation by the Gershwin estate in 1974 and has rarely been seen since. The Columbia Records "soundtrack" album was briefly available from SONY on CD but it too has been withdrawn. (Strangely, contract problems prevented Sammy Davis Jr from appearing on that album and his songs were redone for the record by Cab Calloway!) It is still the preferred version of "highlights" from the score for many listeners who enjoy the well-sung program and lush orchestrations.

The previous writer's review is exceptionally insightful and describes perfectly and comprehensively the many merits of this production and this recording. My only previous exposure to a full-length "Porgy" was the Rattle version, which in comparison to this production is found seriously lacking. Owing primarily to its pacing, the quality of the voices, and its effective and sincere characterizations, this production is without a doubt the best uncut version available. What is perhaps most impressive is the degree to which the singers and the orchestra work together to form a true ensemble and the resulting clarity of interpretation. This is not a program of "stars," and the usual "hits" are well-integrated into the fabric of the entire production. Lovely. Certain to become one of the treasures of your collection.

I agree with the positive comments made here about this production and this recording. This is the best recording of the full score that I know. Haven't heard the Simon Rattle recording but did not need to, since I already had this one which is practically perfect in every way.

I have owned at least four recordings of this work, starting with the movie soundtrack, then the 1951 revival because I wanted the hear the `complete' score, and then when it was finally recorded complete in stereo for the first time, I bought the Maazel recording (which contrary to a comment made here was done in the 70's not 1969--I think it was 1976). Maazel's tempos are heavy and ponderous and lacking all humor. Elsewhere it's said, he was not the greatest Gershwin conductor. Too true.

Was lucky enough to have seen this production in NYC with the top cast recorded here (the leads alternated as it was too tough to sing either Porgy or Bess 8 nights a week). It was beautifully done, musically and theatrically. DeMain gets nearly all the tempos just right and that is an important thing for Gershwin. The cast act convincingly and sing beautifully.

I understand that Porgy and Bess is one of record producer Thos. Z. Shepherd's favorite operas and the care he put into this recording shows it. It is a live with appropriate sound effects that reproduce the action of the stage version.

Overall lovely recorded sound, with a wide dynamic range (pre-digital, you can hear a very few tape dropouts that I wish they fixed, but who cares). And it works on record theatrically, because it worked on the stage! According to a musician friend of mine, who did the percussion here, RCA took a while to decide on committing to this recording, despite the rave reviews the production got, but who can blame them since Maazel's recording had just come out a year or so earlier. Lucky they did. So far this production has never been duplicated for getting all the elements, most especially the Gershwin sound, which more often than not is the antithesis of lingering sentimentality, just right.

After several years of frustration, my search is over. This is overall the most satisfying complete recording of this opera.
The first complete set I heard was Maazel's, and while it has much to recommend it, it never truly ignites the way every good opera should. I then purchased the Rattle set, and found it very beautiful, but even less dramatically coherent than Maazel's. It even caused me to wonder, Lawd forgive me, if Gershwin's sense of dramatic timing wasn't inherently flawed.
How wrong I was. In this set, conductor John DeMain vindicates the work's claim to be a great opera, but never loses sight of the incontrovertible fact that it it is an opera conceived in Tin Pan Alley, and raised on Broadway. Best of all is his expert pacing. DeMain unfailingly seizes the dramatic point of a scene, giving the work a sure structure. Poor Rattle on the other hand seems to be so in love with the music - and who can blame him? - lingering over a phrase here, wallowing in an orchestral and choral wash there, that the music slowly succumbs to Wagnerian torpor.
Rattle may have a higher quotient of gorgeous voices and a more polished orchestra, but DeMain's performance makes me feel I'm in the theatre watching what must have been a thrilling performance. Bravo!

As with most vocal music, the quality of the singers can "make or break" the performance. Here they are all in top form, operatic in stature without being stiff or formal. The orchestra also plays well. The only complaint I have is that the balance is occasionally "off", I get the impression that the engineers were attempting to recreate the sense of a live, stage performance, but sometimes the music ends up sounding distant. Fortunately, this does not happen often.
Without a doubt, this is the best modern Porgy and Bess I've heard on record.

This is a real recording of a broadway cast and they are top notch. The star is Bess, and she is beautiful, with a velvety voice of richness and high, shimmering femininty. My roommate has this recording and I often sneak into his room to play it. I was addicted to the "I's yo woman now" duet between Bess and Porgy. The deeply evocative music is futher enhanced by singing actors, not just singers. It makes a difference. You will feel immersed in the black american experience.

Having been a G. Gershwin fanatic ever since I saw "Manhattan" as a teen, I've listen to bits and pieces of "Porgy and Bess", and even played some of the numbers from sheet music. Oh, yes, I knew there was this complete "opera", or what-have-you, but thought it more than a simple man who didn't care for high school and college humanities courses to approach. Well, I guess "it ain't necessarily so". What a wealth of Gershwin this is! I listened to the three discs all the way through when I first got it, while reading the lyrics in the insert (highly recommended, for those who don't know the story), and now it will be treasured driving-to-work music in the pickup. This rendition has nothing I can pick on for its quality, and hearing it all the way through puts a solid third dimension on those characters we hear in the dissected pieces. Life ends, life goes on; you never know when the Lord's going to come, so roll them bones, brother. See, I'm even starting to run the words through my head. It's great, and worth the money, in my opinion.

I once got into an argument with a friend as to whether Porgy and Bess was an opera or not. My friend insisted that it was definitely not an opera because of the way it was written. He had never seen the score, never listened to any recording of it, even the partial recording then available from Columbia with Avon Long as Sportin' Life. I won the argument.
Then later I purchased the Loren Maazel recording and a copy of the piano score, and suddenly I began wondering if my friend hadn't been right after all. Porgy and Bess is more than just a run-of-the-mill opera. It's a musical drama on the scale of a Wagnerian epic, and yet it deals with the lives of common people. Gershwin had even gone to great lengths to give Dubose Heyward's very shallow book, Porgy, great depth. Heyward's two-dimensional, comic-strip Afro-Americans suddenly seemed to have souls, values, loves, needs, ambitions, all the things that make a people human and noble.
And then came the Houston Grand Opera production of which this is the recording. I actually saw the Houston Grand Opera perform this on stage in Boston, minus Clamma Dale as Bess. I am very grateful for the fact that this recording has chosen to include Ms. Dale, who is the best Bess I have ever heard singing this.
So is this an opera or something else? You'll just have to buy it and find out for yourself.

I never saw Anne Brown--who for George Gershwin was the ONLY Bess--but I did see Clamma Dale, and she is not only an excellent opera singer, but also an accomplished actress. Admittedly this doesn't come over on the CD--so get it just for the music and the singing! NOTE: Leontyne Price is on another album entirely. Make your choice, but make sure you get the right one!