Porgy and Bess
8 July 2003

The Gershwin classic 'Porgy and Bess', was entirely sold out before it even opened in the Mahony Hall at The Helix on Wednesday night July 9th.

The opera, folk opera as George Gershwin called it, is based on a 1924 novel 'Porgy' by Dubose Heyward, a native of South Carolina. Heyward collaborated with George and Ira Gershwin in writing the opera, which was completed in July of 1935 and first produced, on Broadway in New York in October 1935. The opera was not an overnight success and it took years for the show's investor's to make their money back with only some of the songs, among them 'Summertime', 'A Woman is a Sometime Thing', 'It Ain't Necessarily So' and 'I Loves You Porgy' achieving popularity in Gershwin's lifetime. George Gershwin died in 1937.

The story is the story of Porgy, a crippled beggar in Charleston, South Carolina and his love for Bess, a 'good time woman'. It is set in the black community of Catfish Row and it is a story of life and death and love and loss. The music is extraordinary, powerfully dissonant at times, powerfully poignant at other times. Gershwin's work is American, it speaks powerfully to the American experience, it is the music of Harlem clubs and piano rags. Gershwin himself attributed the source of his rhythmic ideas to, among other things, 'the rhythm and rattle of the Boston train'. One particularly powerful and scathing 1930's critic of Porgy and Bess wrote that the music is 'a piquant but highly unsavory stirring up together of Israel, Africa and the Gaelic Isles…'. Despite the critics, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is masterpiece, the only surviving opera founded on 1920's and '30's jazz.

The first Porgy was Todd Duncan who was teaching at Howard University in the States as well as singing part time when Gershwin first, reluctantly, heard him sing. Reluctantly because Gershwin understandably enough we might all agree, was quite determined that he 'didn't want any university professor to sing'. Professor Duncan for his part thought Gershwin to be 'Tin Pan Alley' and so beneath him and only on special request and equally reluctantly did he agree to sing the part of Porgy, a part he eventually went on to sing for forty years, all over the world.

The production staged at The Helix is the Peter Klein production, a tour launched in 1993. This tour has brought this magnificent masterpiece to over 400 big and small cities over five continents. It has played everywhere to packed houses and deeply appreciative audiences and opening night at The Helix here in DCU was no exception. The Mahony Hall, the main venue in The Helix was sold out, as it is for the entire run. This American experience with its universal themes of gentleness, friendship, hope and love, captured our audiences and held them rapt.

Christina Quinlan

For further information visit The Helix website