Live Recording - Titania Palast, Berlin 21 September 1952.
Leontyne Price, William Warfield, Cab Calloway Eva Jessye Choir, Rias-Unterhaltungsorchester, Alexander Smallens As George Gershwin celebrated his thirtieth birthday in 1928, he was at the height of his early maturity. It must have seemed to such a self-confident artist as he that there was nothing he could not achieve if he so wished. However, Gershwin at the age of thirty had not yet written his masterpiece, although he had had ideas for setting an operatic libretto to be fashioned from Du Bose Hayward's novel Porgy for some years, ever since he began reading it one night, unable to sleep, and – gripped by the telling – stayed awake until daybreak before he had finished it. Several factors conspired to delay the realisation of his dream. The musical theatre continued to beckon: in 1929, he wrote two Broadway shows – the first was Show Girl, a somewhat hastily put together vehicle which utilised An American in Paris as a ballet. This admixture did not work too well, and the second show was the revised version of Strike Up The Band, which opened early in January 1930, six months after Show Girl and over two years after the first version. “William Warfield's Porgy is a noble achievement… Price's voice is at its youthful best… No one who admires Gershwin's work should ignore this unique document. As Angelou put it: "Even the chorus performed with such verve that a viewer could easily believe each singer was competing for a leading part."” Gramophone Magazine, August 2008 “…this remarkable Porgy and Bess. It was made during the Berlin run of the famous 1952-3 European tour… of a production by Robert Breen, with an all-black company under the work's original conductor Alexander Smallens. The chorus sings with precision and fervour, and there are characterful performances in the many smaller roles. The young Leontyne Price signs of he future greatness as Bess... William Warfield makes a virile Porgy, and Cab Calloway does a star turn as Sportin' Life. And altogether this recording, refurbished in startlingly immediate mono sound, is both a fascinating document and thoroughly enjoyable in its own right.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 **** | 
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Gramophone Magazine
