Gershwin’s Folk Opera: Porgy and Bess

I’ll be reviewing the Atlanta Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess in a week and have posted a rendition of one of the opera’s hits, “Summertime.” 

Porgy and Bess premiered on Broadway in 1935, but it wasn’t until Houston Grand Opera produced it in 1976 that it began to be recognized as opera.  Gershwin’s opus is ultimately a staged, fully-sung opera incorporating standard operatic conventions such as recitatives, arias, and musical motives that recur throughout the drama.