PORGY AND BESS Revival Set for Broadway in 2007-2008- Page 2

[keen on kean]

Posted: 12/12/06 at 7:32pm

Dear Nobodyhome - I like the way you write, and you clearly know your stuff. I love opera, and could wish that the original Porgy and Bess was accessible to more people, as the Gershwins must have hoped. But if one person walks out of the new production in love with the music, and goes on to listen and love the original, too, it would be worthwhile, don't you think? Even opera houses have to struggle with musical cuts - as do the artistic ghosts of Messrs. Handel, Mozart, Wagner and Verdi, et al., whose works get "re-packaged" to fit in smaller available audience/orchestra attention spans! I hate the idea of generations going by without any inkling of what amazing music Porgy and Bess offers.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/12/06 at 7:52pm

Thank you. You're very kind. I hope you're right.

I do think it's rather ironic that nowadays in the world of classical music, most performing organizations (which, of course, are nonprofit and subsidized) try to realize the works they perform in as complete and musically authentic form as they can, works that are a good deal further away from us in time than P&B is. Of course, there are lots of arguments about how best to go about this and whether most HIP performances are what the composers would have wanted.

For the most part, nowadays opera houses make few if any cuts in the great operas. This was not so true as recently as the '60s. So this seems to me a step backward from the prevalent mindset in the classical world.

I do hope you're right about this P&B. But it does seem to me a step backward. Broadway audiences seem to have such short attention spans nowadays and I think it would be good to make people extend themselves a bit. Audiences should sometimes have to work.

And I do think that most people who will probably be attending this production probably have already heard at least the most famous numbers ("Summertime," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now," "It Ain't Necessarily So," "I Loves You, Porgy," "I Got Pleny o' Nuttin'," and so on), but perhaps I'm overestimating how widely known this music is among people in their 20s, say.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 12/12/06 at 8:39pm

"The London show has a cast of 40 and a 20 piece orchestra. I don't see this happening on Broadway because of the prohibitive cost of such a payroll. One of the reasons the Kennedy Center's "Mame" never transfered to Broadway."

I would rather Mame tke the Hilton and this take the St. James, but that won't happen.