Posted on 08/10/2011 11:00:40 AM PDT by Borges
There’s a spanking new version of “Porgy and Bess” on the way, one that seeks to transform the classic 1935 opera into a commercial Broadway musical. To that end, the director Diane Paulus and the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks have added new scenes, punched up some dialogue, invented biographical details and — most radically — added a more upbeat ending. Such tinkering with the iconic Gershwin work was bound to draw fire from some quarters, and indeed it has, following the publication of an Arts & Leisure article by Patrick Healy about the production, which stars Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis. It begins performances at the American Repertory Theater on Aug. 17 in Cambridge, Mass., with plans to transfer to Broadway next winter.
Nearly all the readers who responded expressed some degree of concern over this effort to refresh this landmark of American culture for modern audiences. (Michael Musto in The Village Voice even had a little fun with it.)
Among those most rankled was the composer Stephen Sondheim, himself no stranger to bold re-interpretations of his own work, who sent in this letter to the editor on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Classical Music Ping
Sacrilege!
No one should mess with Gershwin.
I’d like them to stage a new production of “The Emporer Jones” starring Barack Obama.
Broadway just doesn’t come up with a lot of new ideas anymore.
Making a musical of “Porgy and Bess” seems to continue the trend of turning operas into musicals, i.e., “Rent” and “Miss Saigon.”
Then again, perhaps doing this would educate younger audiences on the beauty of George Gershwin’s music. They sure aren’t learning things like that in public schools anymore.
What the creators of this foul dreck are saying is, “Hey, we’re too stupid to create works of our own, and we’re too greedy and impatient to make careers for ourselves, so we’ll take a work of art created by someone else, tinker with it, and then put our name on it.”
It’s something that’s become very popular with the NOW generation of Baby Boomers and others who are too mediocre to make their own way; we see this kind of crap coming out of Hollywood, too - Steve Martin’s “Bilko” comes immediately to mind.
Oh boy! After this maybe they can punch up Rhapsody in Blue with some awesome synthesizers! /s
While these idiots are at it, why don’t they glue on arm to the statue of Aphrodite, put a mustache on the Mona Lisa and straighten the leaning tower of Pisa! What a bunch of ass-hats!!!
At least Miss Saigon and Rent were original works inspired by other works. Besides the creators of both said that they were more inspired by the original literary sources that inspired Madame Butterfly and La Boheme than the operas themselves.
Mr. Sondheim is correct (although he made a grammatical error in his article LOL), and I agree with him wholeheartedly. George Gershwin was very particular about “Porgy and Bess”, and even left a stipulation in the licensing of this work that it is only to be performed by Black People. The possibilities of a production by White People in black-face singing in dialect is too heinous to even contemplate! :-0
if George was that concerned about the performance of the piece, than any tinkering with it would NOT meet with his approval.
An added note...The “New” Porgy and Bess sounds like it will give new meaning to “Send in the Clowns”.
New title: “Porgy and Jess.”
Audra McDonald was one of my mother’s high school students.
“Eumir Deodato, please go to the nearest white courtesy phone.”
Oh, I agree; they have their own music as opposed to this "Porgy and Bess" ripoff.
Broadway has been in decline for some time now.
When they started doing things like "We Will Rock You," it was painfully obvious that creativity had taken a dive.
I still much prefer the old classics.
The problem with “established” classics is they’re also “widely available in multiple media” classics. If you want people to not stay home to watch the DVD or listen to the album then you need to give them a reason why the stage show is different (and hopefully better). It’s especially true for something like Porgy and Bess, the versions that are out on DVD are both REALLY good, it takes some effort to convince people your production is better than White or Poitier.
They’re probably going to Hip Hop it up.
If you don't like the musical, don't do it. If you do like and want to change it, be honest about it. It's been done before.
Well you can say that a lot of operas or concert works. A live performance can do something new and interesting without changing the actual content.
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