Gershwin: Porgy and Bess

“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 ****

“In 1952 the US State Department funded a world tour of Porgy and Bess. The production by Everyman Opera eventually visited cities across the American continent, north and south, and gave the British, French, Italian, German, Czech and Russian premieres of Gershwin's opera. The tour inspired two famous memoirs, Truman Capote's The Muses are Heard and Maya Angelou's Singin' and Swingin' and GettingMerry Like Christmas. Both writers pay tribute to the array of talent the company possessed, from the veteran Cab Calloway as Sportin' Life to the then-unknown Leontyne Price as Bess.
Several years later Price and William Warfield recorded a disc of highlights for RCA, in which Price sings not only Bess but also Clara and Serena.
Fine though that selection is, it has none of the immediacy and energy of this broadcast from Berlin in September 1952. By then the company had lived with the work for a year.
There is a degree of improvisation from the chorus, the famous Eva Jessye Choir, as they enter into the spirit of the drama. Although it is a fairly complete version of the score, there are some cuts (for instance the Buzzard song), but where authentic performance practice is concerned this wins over every other recording.
William Warfield's Porgy is a noble achievement: as Angelou described him, 'he dragged the audience into his despair… his resonant voice straddled the music as he rode it'. Price's voice is at its youthful best – this is one of the earliest examples of her art on disc. In 'What you want wid Bess?' and 'I wants to stay here' she proves her star quality as well as her emotional commitment.
Helen Colbert as Clara opens the proceedings with a lush 'Summertime' and Helen Thigpen rings the Berlin rafters with 'My man's gone now'.
John McCurry is a fierce Crown, as Capote noted, 'high and heavy and somewhat forbidding'.
In those crucial cameos, Helen Dowdy hollers the Strawberry Woman's cry, and Ray Yates is the irresistible Crab Man (both created the roles). Cab Calloway's insinuating manner is just as effective in 'It ain't necessarily so' as it had been decades earlier in 'Kicking the Gong Around'. Some of the soloists are uncredited – who is the feisty Maria? The sound is clear, well defined; the recording favours the voices, but Alexander Smallens, who conducted the first performance in 1935, somehow persuades some really hot playing from the RIAS Light Orchestra. No one who admires Gershwin's work should ignore this unique document.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“a distinctive and colourful performance of a masterly and moving opera” Gramophone Magazine, September 1986

“Where Harnoncourt succeeds is in blending dramatic intimacy and scale –hence the three discs and a three-hour playing time – with a widescreen approach to the music that is exuberant and alive, orchestral details leaping to the foreground, textures polished and gleaming with new-spun vitality, and topped by luminescent choral singing.” Michael Quinn, bbc.co.uk, 18th December 2009

“This was the first complete recording of Gershwin's masterpiece, and it remains one of the two best. It has vitality, intensity and is idiomatic, with a wonderful line-up of soloists.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2007 *****

“This superb recording established the work's formidable status beyond question ... Maazel includes the complete text ... some half hour of virtually unknown music, including many highly evocative passages and some striking choruses, reinforces the consistency of Gershwin's inspiration ... the recording is one of the most vivid that even Decca has produced. Willard White is a magnificent Porgy, while Leona Mitchell's vibrant Bess has a moving streak of vulnerability. But it is above all Maazel's triumph, a tremendous first recording with dazzling playing from the Cleveland Orchestra ... one of the most impressive transfers of an analogue original that Decca has yet issued …” Penguin Guide

“Another landmark set, and a life-enhancing experience. Simon Rattle’s terrific Glyndebourne company, with every support from the recording team – the production sounds superb – manage to turn Abbey Road into a real theatrical environment. The cast are so much a part of their roles that one almost takes the excellence of their contributions for granted. And behind it all is Rattle, so attuned and so alive to every aspect of this remarkable score.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2008

“Glyndebourne's epoch-making production, taken to the recording studio two years later, helped cement the work's reputation as one of the greatest 20th-century operas.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2006 *****