Gustav Mahler, 1892 (Wikimedia Commons)

It was quite an honor for a young composer – a chance to play his latest work for a master conductor – and Gustav Mahler accepted it gratefully.

At the keyboard, Mahler glanced up from his score. Conductor Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow’s hands were covering his ears! Mahler’s Totenfeier trailed off. "No, no," Bülow murmured. "Please, carry on."

Mahler’s first symphony, the "Titan," had premiered in 1889. He’d tried to deny that it had a program, but eventually admitted that what he had in mind was "a strong, heroic man, his life and sufferings, his battles and defeat at the hands of Fate."

With this new work, Totenfeier – Funeral Rite – Mahler was burying his first symphony’s hero.

Mahler arrived at the final notes of the Totenfeier. The room fell silent. Long seconds ticked away. Bülow sat, silent, staring. Then the words poured out: "If what I’ve just heard is still music, then I no longer understand anything about music."

Mahler was crushed. The critics had written after his first symphony that Mahler was a fine conductor – but, like most fine conductors, he had no future as a composer. Now this. "I’m thinking of giving it up," he wrote to his friend Richard Strauss.

He didn’t. Nor did he allow Bülow’s judgement to turn him away from his work. And, as it turned out, Bülow would have yet another role to play in the composition of what would eventually become Mahler’s second symphony.

It took Mahler another 2 years to make further progress on the symphony. By that time a mildly revised Totenfeier had become the symphony’s first movement. Once he’d finished the symphony’s andante second movement in July of 1893, Mahler almost immediately composed the third, a scherzo.

As a study for that scherzo, Mahler had written a song, a setting of a text from the German folk poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn). The verse he chose was "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" (St Anthony’s Sermon to the Fishes). This tale had significance for Mahler, as we’ll soon see. In his Hamburg study – Mahler was chief conductor of the State Theatre there – hung an artist’s image of this aquatic sermon. It was a sermon politely and attentively received by the saint’s scaly audience – and an entirely ineffectual one.

That same month, Mahler briefly set aside the symphony to compose music for yet another Wunderhorn verse. "Urlicht" carried a decidedly more optimistic tone. Initially, Mahler meant it for his collection of Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs.

Now Mahler had the first three movements of his symphony. He’d already realized that the largest orchestra wouldn’t suit the statement he wanted to make with its finale, that he’d need a chorus. But what words would they sing? Nothing seemed quite right. Not even his beloved Wunderhorn collection yielded his text.

So things remained through the rest of the summer and the winter of 1893.

It was Bülow who gave him the answer in the spring – though not in the way Bülow might have preferred. In early February of 1894, Bülow had gone to Cairo, searching for relief from his failing health. But five days on, the spark of life winked out for Bülow.

Bülow’s body was returned to Hamburg. On the 29th of March, Mahler attended his memorial service at St Michaels. "It hit me like a lightning bolt, and everything became plain and clear in my mind!" Mahler told a friend. The choir had sung Friedrich Klopstock’s Resurrection Ode in Bülow’s service: "Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n, wirst du, mein Staub, nach kurzer Ruh!" ("You will rise, my dust, yes, rise, after a brief rest.").

Mahler had the text for his choral finale. Or, rather, for some of it; in the end, he chose what suited him from Klopstock, and wrote the rest of the words himself. Three months later, the finale was finished.

But Mahler was still not satisfied with the symphony’s structure. He thought the lightness of the second movement, the andante, was too much of a contrast with the massive first movement. He didn’t like the transition between the scherzo and the finale, either.

The second problem he solved by inserting the "Urlicht" song between the 4th movement and the finale – the first time any composer had done such a thing in a symphony.

For the first problem, he experimented with placing the scherzo ahead of the andante. Ultimately, though, he decided to go with plan A – andante first – and suggest that the conductor allow an interval of "at least 5 minutes" between the first movement and the andante.* (In one performance Mahler conducted, he also inserted a pause between the 4th movement and the finale. In the end, though, he thought better of it, and said that the finale should immediately follow the "Urlicht," with no break at all.)

So exactly what was it that Mahler needed to say in his second symphony? Why did he need a massive orchestra, two soloists, and a chorus? The subtitle, "Resurrection," might lead you to think that he was expressing a religious idea.

However traditional it may be, though, that subtitle is not Mahler’s. He was not a religious man. Though he’d been born and raised in Judaism, Mahler didn’t much adhere to its precepts as an adult.

Mahler converted to Catholicism early in 1897, but that too had little spiritual significance for him. It was really just a way round Vienna’s virulent official anti-semitism, which had stood in the way of his directorship of the Vienna Court Opera. (As he left the conversion ceremony, he remarked to a friend, "I have just changed my coat.") Later, asked why he’d never composed a mass, Mahler replied that he couldn’t state the Credo and still maintain his artistic and spiritual integrity.

The real meaning of this music can be found in Mahler’s own words: "My [first] two symphonies are nothing but the full substance of my whole life."

Over a period of nearly 5 years, Mahler gave his listeners much more specific information about his second symphony, in the form of movement-by-movement programs. He wrote three in all. Even though he eventually withdrew them, I think they still provide useful context for the music.

Gilbert Kaplan, the businessman and amateur musician so taken with Mahler’s second symphony that he created the Kaplan Foundation to support study and preservation of Mahler’s music, and even studied and learned to conduct the work, has developed an analysis which draws from all three of Mahler’s programs. Here is a somewhat abridged and paraphrased version.

Movement 1: Allegro Maestoso. Mit Durchaus Ernstem Und Feierlichem Ausdruck. We stand at the coffin of a beloved person. His whole life, his struggles, his passions, his sufferings, his accomplishments, all pass before us. The distractions of everyday life are lifted like a hood from our eyes, and a solemn voice chills our hearts: "What next? What is life? What is death? Why do we live? Why do we suffer? Is it all nothing but a huge, frightful joke?" We must answer these questions if we are to go on living — indeed, if we are to go on dying! This answer I give in the final movement.

Movement 2: Andante Moderato. Sehr Gemächlich. You are struck by a memory, a ray of sunlight, pure and cloudless, out of the departed’s life. Surely you’ve had the experience of burying someone dear to you. Perhaps, on the way back, some long forgotten hour of shared happiness suddenly rose before your inner eye, sending a sunbeam into your soul — and you almost forgot what had just taken place.

Movement 3: Scherzo: In Ruhig Fliessender Bewegung. You awaken from that blissful dream. The surge of life in ceaseless motion, never comprehensible, suddenly seems eerie, like billowing dancers in a brightly lit ballroom that you gaze into from a distance so great that you cannot hear the music. The movement of the couples seems senseless. You imagine that, to one who has lost his identity and happiness, the world looks like this — distorted, as if reflected in a concave mirror. Life for such a person becomes meaningless. Disgust for every form of existence seizes him. He cries out in anguish.

Movement 4: Ulricht. Sehr Feierlich, Aber Schlicht. The voice of simple faith rings in our ears: "I am from God, and to God I will return! The loving God will give me a small light, will light me to blessed eternal life!"

Movement 5: Im Tempo Des Scherzos. Wild Herausfahrend. The finale starts with the same anguished scream that ended the scherzo. The Last Judgment is at hand. The earth trembles; the Last Trumpet sounds; the graves burst open; all the creatures struggle from the ground, moaning and trembling. They march in a mighty procession: rich and poor, peasants and kings, the whole church with bishops and popes. All cry and tremble alike because, in the eyes of God, there are no just men. Their fearful cries for mercy and forgiveness ring in our ears.

The wailing becomes more terrible. Our senses desert us; all consciousness dies as the Eternal Judge approaches. The trumpets of the Apocalypse ring out.

Finally, the graves are empty; the earth lies silent and deserted. Comes now the long note of the bird of death. Even it finally dies away.

What happens now is far from what we expected. All has ceased to exist. Then: the soft, gentle sound of a chorus of saints and heavenly hosts: "Rise again, yes, you shall rise again!" The glory of God comes into sight. A wondrous light strikes us to the heart. All is quiet and blissful. Behold: there is no judgment, no sinners, no just men, no great, no small. There is no punishment and no reward. A feeling of overwhelming love fills us with bliss and illuminates our existence.

*In today’s (25 November 2012) broadcast of the work, we’ll honor Mahler’s request – and simultaneously deal with our legal obligation to the FCC – by taking time out between the first and second movements for a station identification.

Pirates of Penzance Program (1881) (Wikimedia Commons)

NOTE: This In Performance broadcast (10 June 2012) will begin at 3pm, one half hour earlier than usual.

W S Gilbert began writing plays when he was still in school, but after he graduated, he set his sights on a military career. As it turned out, though, the military didn’t need him. So he tried civil service as an assistant clerk.

He despised the job. When a bit of an inheritance came his way in 1863, he decided to try his hand at legal work. His career as a barrister was more satisfying, but not very successful. Gilbert averaged five clients per year.

Gilbert soon realized that such niceties as food and shelter were going to require a bit more income than law was bringing him, so he turned back to writing. Initially he used it as a supplement to his legal income, penning (often scathing) theatre reviews, magazine stories, and poems.

Gilbert’s Bab Ballads were named for his childhood moniker. He illustrated them himself. It was here that Gilbert developed the topsy-turvy style that would serve him so well in the theatre – taking an utterly absurd premise and following it faithfully to its logical conclusion. These publications would later provide feedstock for Gilbert’s plays and operettas.

At a rehearsal for his 1869 play Ages Ago, Gilbert was introduced to a young composer.

There was never any doubt that Arthur Sullivan would become a musician – he was composing for band when he was eight years old! His father tried to divert the hurtling freight train, thinking that a music career wasn’t apt to produce a son who could support him in his old age. It was all to no avail. Sullivan became a choir boy and soon was composing anthems. A scholarship cleared his way to the Royal Academy of Music and eventually to the Leipzig Conservatory.

After his 1861 graduation and a return from Leipzig, Sullivan dug into composing in earnest. His father’s warning quickly returned to haunt him, though. He found that composing music – even when it was amply salted with briskly-selling parlor songs and hymns – wasn’t much of a living. Fortunately, steady work and a stable income came with a gig as a church organist. Over the next decade Sullivan composed a good-sized catalog of moderately successful works, including a cello concerto, a symphony, an oratorio, overtures, ballet, and opera.

In 1869, Sullivan’s fellow composer Frederic Clay was working with a poet and author on a musical, Ages Ago, and introduced Sullivan to the librettist.

Two years later, Arthur Sullivan and W S Gilbert joined forces for the first time to create Thespis. It was a parody of grand opera in general, and of the then-popular Offenbach comic operas such as Orpheus in the Underworld in particular. I’d like to say that they immediately hit it off – but that didn’t happen. In fact, it was another 4 years before Gilbert and Sullivan teamed up again.

In 1875 producer Richard d’Oyly Carte was managing the Royalty Theater, and was about to produce Jacques Offenbach’s La Perichole. He needed a companion piece, and brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to create Trial By Jury.

The filler piece became the hit, far outdrawing – and outlasting – the Offenbach. The stage was set.

It took d’Oyly Carte another two years to raise the cash, but his next collaboration with Gilbert and Sullivan, The Sorcerer, did rather well, thank you very much. Encouraged by that modest success, the team launched the H M S Pinafore barely half a year later. Pinafore became a huge hit – and the trio were off and running.

When Gilbert had begun writing plays, English theatre’s reputation hadn’t been any too good. One of his objectives had been to improve its image, and to make theatre more "family-friendly."

d’Oyly Carte agreed – he wanted to produce comic opera for families. Not for him the risque reputation of Vaudeville. The plays he produced with Gilbert and Sullivan were thoroughly entertaining – and utterly innocent. With these three men at the helm, never would evil gain so much as an inch of dramatic traction.

Gilbert and d’Oyly Carte’s reputation management extended from the characters to the people playing them. They rigorously corraled the performers to forestall any hint of scandal. They forbade such temptations to perdition as cursing, loitering, flirting, and gossip. Men’s and women’s dressing rooms were on opposite sides of the theatre; as the players left the stage they were summarily shooed to their strictly segregated warrens.

With the Savoy Theatre, newly built for Gilbert and Sullivan in 1881, they and d’Oyly Carte gave us theatrical traditions that persist today, from free programs to numbered seating. The Savoy was also the first theatre to be lit entirely by electricity.

There was one thing that Gilbert, Sullivan, and d’Oyly Carte had trouble managing, though: performance rights. Not in England, mind you; between their trademark "natural" acting style and their youthful performers’ energy, they effectively owned the market. And when they didn’t, they successfully worked England’s legal system to their advantage.

But America had a more freewheeling attitude and far less aggressive copyright laws (things have changed appreciably since then). HMS Pinafore was a huge international hit, and G, S & C found it nearly impossible to rein in the hundreds of unauthorized American performances.

Thus Pirates of Penzance became the first – and only – G&S opera to have its official premiere in New York, opening on New Year’s Eve in 1879. They were hoping to establish theirs as the official production. They did succeed in making a tidy profit on it, but in the end, they still couldn’t prevent a plethora of pirates pirating Pirates. (Sorry.)

Act 1 finds us with a rollicking band of brigands on the rocky Cornish coast of Britain. They’re drinking to Frederic, who is celebrating the completion of his pirate apprenticeship. At noon, just half an hour away, he will turn 21.

But Frederic has a secret. As his nurse Ruth explains, his apprenticeship is all a careless mistake. When Frederic was just a boy, his father sent Ruth with him to apprentice him to a sea pilot. But she misunderstood the boy’s father, and here he is with a band of sea pirates. Afraid to face up to her error, Ruth too signed on with the lawbreakers.

Frederic, ever the dutiful one, has faithfully served out the terms of his agreement. In 30 minutes, he’ll be free – and then it’ll be his obligation as a British citizen to betray the pirate band!

For this, the Pirate King compliments Frederic. After all, he’s only acting on his convictions when he resolves to exterminate his colleagues. But, the Pirate King points out, for the moment Frederic is still a pirate – and come to that, why haven’t they been successful pirates, anyway?

Frederic points out the problem: they’re just too nice. As orphans themselves, they feel a duty to release all the orphans they capture. And, somehow, curiously, these days every ship they capture is full of orphans.

The time comes and Frederic takes leave of his pirate friends, but not before trying to leave the long-suffering Ruth behind ("… yours is the only woman’s face I have seen … What a terrible thing it would be if I were to marry this innocent person and then find out that she is, on the whole, plain!"). Frederic even goes so far as to ask Ruth if she considers herself fair. Then he points out her advanced age and thoughtlessly renounces his companion of many years. In despair, she leaves him.

Just then Frederic spots a bevy of comely maidens. Their response is about what you’d expect: "A pirate! Horror!" Only one of them, Mabel, seems willing to accept Frederic as he is: "It’s true that he’s gone astray, but … why should you all be deaf to pity’s name?"

The young women soon find themselves surrounded by Frederic’s former pirate band. Just as the pirates are about to claim the maidens as their wives, the women reveal their identity. All are daughters of major-general Stanley – and here he is, "the very model of the modern major-general." Stanley knows the pirates’ secret, so he lies, claiming to be an orphan. Duty-bound, the pirates set the major-general and his daughters free.

Act 2 opens in a derelict chapel on major-general Stanley’s estate. Stanley, surrounded by his daughters, is racked with guilt for his falsehood. He has betrayed his ancestors’ honor – even if they aren’t really his ancestors. A crew of nervous policemen arrive. Frederic’s duty will be to lead them to the pirates’ lair.

Ruth and the Pirate King find Frederic alone in the chapel. They bring news – he’s still a pirate after all! It seems that his contract says he’ll be released on his 21st birthday. But Frederic was born on the 29th of February in leap year. So he’s celebrated only 5 birthdays, not 21. He still has another 16 "years" to serve in his pirate apprenticeship.

Duty calls yet again. Frederic will have to leave his beloved Mabel and return to the pirate life.

If there’s one thing Frederic knows, it’s duty. His duty now is to the Pirate King, so he reveals that major-general Stanley lied when he claimed to be an orphan. The Pirate King is livid. He vows "swift and terrible" revenge that very night.

Mabel, alone with Frederic, swears she will remain faithful to him until he has served out his full 21-leap-year term. The pirate band approaches and the fearful pirate-hunting policemen hide. Major-general Stanley appears with his daughters, and the pirates seize him. Despite all of Mabel’s entreaties, Frederic is powerless to help him – his duty is to the pirates, after all. The police try to save Stanley, but the pirates quickly repel the attack – "Don’t say you are orphans, for we know that game."

The police seargent, desperate, tries one last move: "We charge you yield, in Queen Victoria’s name!"

The words have a striking effect. Moments before, the pirates were standing over policemen with drawn swords. Now they are on their knees.

What is this? Ruth steps forward to explain. The pirates aren’t really orphans, she says. They’re "noblemen who have gone wrong."

Well then! "Peers will be peers," in major-general Stanley’s world. All is forgiven. Frederic and Mabel can wed. The pirates will return to their official duties in the House of Lords. And as a bonus, they’ll have the hands of Stanley’s daughters in marriage.

Poster for a 1905 performance (Wikimedia Commons; PD in USA)

NOTE: This In Performance broadcast (for 3 June 2012) will begin at 3pm, one half hour earlier than usual.

Victor Herbert was born in Dublin, but after his father died, he and his mother went to London to live with his grandfather. When he was 27, his mother married a German physician, and Herbert landed in Stuttgart.

There he expected to become a doctor like his stepfather, but that was not to be. His family fell on hard times. Then as now, the cost of a medical education was daunting. So music it was, and Victor entered the Stuttgart Conservatory, where he studied cello.

A gig as a cellist in Eduard Strauss’s orchestra took Herbert to Vienna, where he met soprano Therese Foerster. In 1886 they were married. Her career was on an upward trajectory that soon took her to New York and the Met. There she was offered the lead in Goldmark’s The Queen of Sheba for the 1886-87 season opener. She accepted, on the condition that her husband would be hired to play in the Met orchestra. He signed on as principal cellist.

Herbert threw himself into New York’s musical life, playing cello and composing, and eventually adopting America as his permanent home. For the first several years, he composed only instrumental music, but in 1894 he created his first operetta, Prince Ananias.

Except for a few years as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the theatre would be Herbert’s principal musical home for the rest of his life, with such major operetta successes as 1903′s Babes in Toyland, 1905′s Mlle Modiste, 1906′s The Red Mill, 1910′s Naughty Marietta, and 1913′s Sweethearts. He also composed operas; in later years, ballet music for musical theatre; and the score for the 1916 film, The Fall of a Nation.

Herbert’s first real success in operetta came in 1897 with The Serenade. This was thanks partly to his music, and partly to the impressive star power of soprano Alice Nielsen. The following season, Herbert composed The Fortune Teller for Nielsen and her opera company, giving her no fewer than three roles. His librettist was Harry B. Smith.

After a brief engagement in Toronto, The Fortune Teller premiered on Broadway on 26 September 1898. It ran for 40 performances. That may not seem like a long run, but at the beginning of the 20th century a Broadway premiere was just the beginning of a show’s life on the road.

Act 1 opens at the Budapest Opera’s ballet school. Penurious Count Berezowski has learned that one of the ballet students is to inherit an imposing estate. The count has found the solution to his poverty: a wedding!

There are, however, two small catches. One is ballet master Fresco, who wants his cut of the fortune – a "finder’s fee," if you will. The other is a bit more daunting: the would-be heiress, Irma, doesn’t much like the count. Besides, she already loves another, Captain Ladislas. Not for her this wedding: she must escape before it’s too late!

As luck (and reports from Ladislas) would have it, Irma’s twin brother Fedor has just deserted his military post to elope with a French singer. Desertion is a capital crime. So Irma has a chance not only to escape the count, but also to save her brother’s life. All she has to do is dress up in Fedor’s uniform and take his place. With that, she’s off, leaving behind a bogus suicide note for ballet master Fresco.

Fresco is beside himself – not at Irma’s alleged death, but at the loss of the cash it represents! Just then a solution presents itself in the form of Musette, a fortune teller with a band of Romanies who have just arrived. Musette bears an uncanny resemblance to Irma. (The two roles are always played by the same singer.) Aha! Fresco will simply marry Musette to the count.

Not surprisingly, this idea doesn’t sit well with Musette’s real lover from the Romany band, Sandor. But not to worry, he says – they’ll just run off after the wedding, leaving Count Berezowski in the lurch.

Act 2 takes place at Count Berezowski’s chateau. The wedding is imminent, but the bride, Musette, is nowhere to be found. However, Irma has returned, wearing her brother’s uniform. Fresco persuades her to trade her uniform for the wedding gown.

Following all this so far? Good. Now, take a deep breath: Sandor takes Irma for Musette, his sweetheart. Captain Ladislas takes her for his love, Irma. Count Berezowski takes her for his bride-to-be. And the count is determined to take her for his bride.

The three men are about to come to blows, so Irma reveals her "true identity." She is, she says, Fedor, her brother. This ruse is threatened when Fedor’s fiancee, the French singer Pompom, appears. But just then a messenger arrives with the news that war has broken out. All head for the front.

Act 3 finds us at the Hungarian forces’ camp. Fedor is still missing, and Irma is still taking his place. Pompom arrives, and accuses "Fedor" of deserting her.

Just as the situation seems hopeless, an officer arrives with the resolution. Fedor hasn’t deserted either Pompom or the army. He’s been sent on a top secret mission, and he’s about to return a hero!

The subterfuge is undone and all is forgiven. Now Irma can marry her true love Ladislas, Musette can marry Sandor, and Fedor can tie the knot with Pompom. Count Berezowski and Fresco? They’re left with their just reward for their conniving and duplicity – nothing.

Alvy Powell and Marquita Lister

NOTE: This In Performance broadcast will begin one hour earlier than usual, at 2:30pm.

Over the last decade, the Akron Symphony Orchestra has periodically programmed opera – collections of operatic excerpts, and complete concert-format and semi-staged operas. The latter have included Bizet’s Carmen in 2003 and Verdi’s La Traviata in 2007.

For the 2010-11 season, music director Christopher Wilkins set an even more ambitious goal – a large scale, semi-staged production of George Gershwin’s American "folk opera," Porgy and Bess.

Gershwin’s vision for Porgy and Bess specified an African-American cast and onstage chorus. In addition to the national and regional talent recruited for the singing roles, Wilkins called on the musicians who have brought several years of the orchestra’s Gospel Meets Symphony programs to life, augmenting them with performers from Akron’s Youth Excellence Performing Arts Workshop (YEPAW). An additional 68 voice chorus located in the upper balcony included members of the Akron Symphony Chorus.

In 1924, author DuBose Heyward read a newspaper account of a local African-American man accused of aggravated assault, a crime of passion. It caught Heyward’s attention and imagination. "Goat Sammy" was disabled, unable to stand or walk; a cart pulled by a goat was his only mobility.

Porgy, Heyward’s novel inspired by Goat Sammy’s story, became a best seller. Composer George Gershwin read Porgy in September of 1926 and immediately contacted Heyward, proposing that they work together on a folk opera adaptation of the tale. Heyward’s response was strongly favorable, but he was already involved in a collaboration to produce a stage production of Porgy with spirituals.

This was just two years after Gershwin’s sensational success with Rhapsody in Blue, and he was much in demand. So it wasn’t until late in 1933, more than 7 years after their initial contact, that the author’s and the composer’s schedules finally meshed. The month after that, though, Heyward began sending material to Gershwin. The following spring he spent a month in New York with George and his brother Ira, who was helping with the lyrics.

Heyward had set Porgy in his native Charleston, South Carolina. Since almost the inception of the project he’d been trying to draw Gershwin there for a visit. Finally, in June 1934, Gershwin rented a cottage on an island off the Charleston shore. Heyward and his wife Dorothy, who had assisted with the theatrical Porgy, joined Gershwin there.

Gershwin spent quite a bit more of his summer enjoying the island than he did working on the opera. Nevertheless, he was able to absorb some of the African-American musical culture on a neighboring island.

When he returned to New York late in July, Gershwin set to work in earnest, wrapping up the recitatives and orchestrating his opera. This time he soloed on the orchestration (Paul Whiteman had orchestrated Rhapsody in Blue for him). A year later, Porgy and Bess – now bearing the second character’s name to distinguish it from the earlier spiritual-based musical – was finished.

Gershwin’s next tasks were casting and production. He was seeking classically trained African-American singers for his cast, and Todd Duncan’s name surfaced almost immediately. However, Duncan taught at Howard University, and Gershwin "didn’t want any university professor to sing" in Porgy and Bess. When Gershwin actually heard Duncan sing, though, he gave Duncan the lead on the spot.

Gershwin may have thought of Porgy and Bess as an opera, but he was careful to book its Broadway run at the Alvin Theater, assiduously avoiding the word "opera" in connection with it. The show opened in New York on 10 October 1935. It ran for a rather modest 124 performances and was not a financial success.

Nevertheless, Porgy and Bess went on tour in January 1936, playing in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Washington DC. In Washington the cast protested the National Theatre’s policy of discrimination. Eventually, the theatre management gave in. Porgy and Bess became the first performance there to have an integrated audience.

Porgy didn’t achieve real audience and financial success for another half-dozen years. The turning point was a 9-month 1942 run at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre. However, what played at the Majestic was not Gershwin’s original work. The show’s director had made draconian cuts in the libretto, halved the size of the cast, pruned the orchestra, and eliminated many of the recitatives in favor of spoken dialogue.

A 1952 version reversed many of the cuts, and brought in sizable European audiences. Although that production made a few appearances here in the States, the first really successful American performance of Porgy and Bess as the full opera Gershwin had envisioned didn’t take place until nearly 40 years after the premiere.

In the summer of 1975, Lorin Maazel led the first essentially uncut modern performance of Porgy and Bess with the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. It was recorded by London/Decca. The recording was out of print for some years, but was reissued in 2007.

That same year, Houston Grand Opera presented a fully staged, full length performance, which they later took to Broadway’s Uris Theater. That performance was recorded by RCA.

At last, a half-century after Gershwin had first conceived the idea for Porgy and Bess, it was the fully-fledged American opera he had meant it to be. Its international stature has only grown since then.

Act I, Scene 1

It is night in Catfish Row, a shantytown near the Charleston waterfront. A piano plays "Jassbo Brown’s Blues." Clara sings her infant to sleep with the lullaby, "Summertime." Jake, Clara’s husband, sings "A Woman is a Sometime Thing" to the baby.

Porgy enters (in the Akron performance, he supports himself with a crutch rather than riding a goat cart) as a crap game is in progress. The others tease him for his interest in Bess. Bess enters with her lover, Crown, who is intoxicated. Crown joins the crap game. Enraged at his losses, Crown attacks another player, Robbins, and kills him with a cotton hook.

Crown runs away to hide. As the police arrive, the Catfish Row residents scatter. Bess, now abandoned by her runaway lover, pleads to the nearly empty scene for help and shelter. Sportin’ Life, Catfish Row’s drug dealer, offers to take her to New York, but she refuses. Porgy opens his door to her.

Act I, Scene 2

Robbins’s corpse lies in his and Serena’s room, a saucer on his chest for burial cost donations ("Overflow, Overflow"). The police arrive on the scene and accuse Peter, a half-deaf elderly man, of the murder, expecting the others to finger Crown. No one does, so Peter is hauled off as a "material witness." Serena mourns Robbins with "My Man’s Gone Now." His friends commend his soul to heaven with "Leaving for the Promised Land."

Act II, Scene 1

It’s a month later on Catfish Row. Jake and the fisherman mend their nets and prepare to take to sea, despite warnings of September storms ("It Takes a Long Pull to Get There"). Porgy sings "I’ve Got Plenty of Nothin’," and his friends remark on how he’s changed since he’s been with Bess. Sportin’ Life once again tries to entice Bess with his "magic dust" and life in New York, but Porgy’s example has helped her change her ways. She refuses both. Porgy sends the dope peddler packing. He and Bess sing the love duet "Bess, You is My Woman Now."

A picnic is in the offing ("Oh, I Can’t Sit Down"), but Porgy can’t go. Bess says she’ll stay home too. Porgy insists that she join their friends at the picnic.

Act II, Scene 2

It’s evening, and the picnic is in full swing on Kittiwah Island ("I Ain’t Got No Shame"). Sportin’ Life extols the virtues of religious skepticism in "It Ain’t Necessarily So." Serena arrives and casts "Shame on All You Sinners." Now they have to hurry, or they’ll miss the last boat home.

As the others pack up to leave, Bess lingers. Abruptly, Crown appears; he has been hiding on the island. She begs him to leave her alone ("What You Want With Bess?"), but he compels her to stay. The boat leaves without her.

Act II, Scene 3

It’s early morning, a week later. Jake and the fishermen make final preparations for their fishing excursion, with a partial reprise of "It Takes a Long Pull to Get There." The police have released Peter.

Bess has returned from Kittiwah Island, incoherent. She lies delerious in Porgy’s house. Serena prays for her recovery ("Oh, Doctor Jesus"). Catfish Row awakens as the Strawberry Woman, the Crab Man and Peter the honey man offer their wares.

Bess calls for Porgy. She admits to having been with Crown. Porgy replies that he knows, but it’s all right. Bess has promised Crown that she will go with him, but now she’s afraid. She wants to stay with Porgy ("I Loves You, Porgy"). Porgy swears that he will protect her from Crown.

Anxiously, Clara watches the sea. A storm is brewing. The hurricane bell rings its urgent warning. Fearing the worst, Clara falls to her knees.

Act II, Scene 4

The storm rages outside Serena’s room, where all have gathered to wait and pray. Peter sings "I Hear Death Knockin’ at the Door" – and just then there is a loud, violent knock at the door! Crown bursts in, returning to claim Bess. Serena warns Crown that the storm may kill him, but he sings "If God wanted to kill me, He had plenty of chance ‘tween here and Kittiwah Island." He taunts the entire company with a bawdy song ("A Red-Headed Woman").

Clara spots Jake’s boat, capsized ("Jake’s Boat In the River"). She hands her baby to Bess and rushes out into the storm. Bess urges all the men to follow her, but it is Crown who does so, shouting that he will return for Bess.

Act III, Scene 1

In the courtyard the next night, all mourn Clara, Jake, and Crown – surely lost in the storm ("Clara, Clara"). Sportin’ Life, however, hints that Crown is not dead. Bess sings "Summertime" to Clara’s baby. The courtyard empties.

Crown slinks into the abandoned courtyard, creeping toward Porgy’s door. As he passes the window, an arm reaches out and plunges a long knife into his back. Crown staggers. Porgy stumbles out of the house, seizes Crown, and throttles him. "Bess, Bess, You Got a Man Now," he proclaims.

Act III, Scene 2

The next afternoon, the police arrive to investigate Crown’s death. Serena says she knows nothing – and that all in Catfish Row will swear that Crown murdered her husband Robbins. The police ask Porgy to identify Crown’s body. He refuses out of fear; Sportin’ Life has told him that if a man’s killer looks at his corpse, the corpse’s wounds will bleed. The police haul him away.

Sportin’ Life approaches Bess. Porgy could be in prison for years, he tells her. He might even be executed. The dope peddler offers Bess his "happy dust" to assuage her fears. At first she refuses, but then she succumbs to the temptation. Sportin’ Life again presses her to accompany him to the big city ("There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon for New York"). He reminds her that she is now again all alone.

Act III, Scene 3

A week later, life in Catfish Row seems normal ("Good morning, Sister"). Porgy returns. Everyone sings "It’s Porgy Coming Home." Porgy has been in jail for contempt of court after refusing to identify Crown. Even there his luck held up; he’s won cash at jailhouse crap games. He brings gifts for all, including a red dress for Bess.

But – "Oh, Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess?" Serena and Maria join in, excusing and explaining her actions: Bess has gone to New York with Sportin’ Life. Porgy calls for his goat cart. He will find Bess, wherever she is, and bring her back. He and the chorus sing the finale, "Oh Lord, I’m On My Way."