A Gershwin Roundtable: Porgy and Bess, American in Paris, Cuban Overture
What if white baritones began singing Porgy?
Join PostClassical hosts Joseph Horowitz, Maestro Angel Gil-Ordonez and Bill McGlaughlin and their guests:
Bass-baritone Kevin Deas
Tenor George Shirley
Mark Clague, head of the Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan
Conrad L. Osborne, author of Opera as Opera
Our topics: Porgy and Bess and the American experience of race; a new edition of An American in Paris; a new take on the Cuban Overture.
LISTENING GUIDE
PART ONE:
1:34 – Lawrence Tibbett sings “I got plenty o’ nuttin’” (1935)
5:04 – Gershwin and race: “The Abraham Lincoln of Negro music” (J. Rosamond Johnson)
6:39 – Conrad L. Osborne on Tibbett (“The foremost singing actor America has produced”)
10:29 – Tibbett sings “Oh Bess, oh where’s my Bess?” (1935)
13:55 – George Shirley and Kevin Deas on white baritones singing Porgy (“music belongs to everybody”)
21: 12 – The critic Irving Kolodin opines that George Shirley “doesn’t look the part of a French nobleman”
29:14 – Tibbett sings “De Glory Road” (1935)
34:24 – Mark Clague on white policemen in Porgy and Bess
44:52 -- George Shirley sings Mozart: “Un aura amorosa”
48:35 – Kevin Deas sings Bach: “Ich habe genug” with PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordóñez (Igor Leschishin, oboe)
PART TWO:
1:46 – Joseph Horowitz on “the Gershwin threat” and “the Gershwin moment”
3:11 – Mark Clague on the original version of An American in Paris
11:35 – Angel Gil-Ordóñez on Gershwin’s Cuban Overture
21:56 – Gershwin: the Cuban Overture performed by PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Gil- Gil-Ordóñez
40:06: Finale of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F performed by Vakhtang Kodanashvili with PCE conducted by Gil-Ordóñez
