Porgy and Bess (1959) Vinyl LP • Sidney and 50 similar items

Catalog Number: OS-2016 Condition Details: Vinyl plays with occasional light-crackles (play-graded). Cover looks good; light-scuffing and a few creases (front/back); slight discoloration with darker spots on back. Inner-sleeve is original (plastic). Spine is easy-to-read with mild-wear. Minor shelf-wear along top/bottom-edge and corners. Opening is crisp with signs of light use and a few divots. Gray two-eye Columbia labels. (Not a cut-out.) Tracks: Overture; Summertime; A Woman Is A Sometime Thing; The Wake: Gone, Gone, Gone / Porgy's Prayer; My Man's Gone Now; I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'; Bess, You Is My Woman Now Morning; Catfish Row; I Can't Sit Down; It Ain't Necessarily So; I Ain't Got No Shame; What You Want With Bess?; Street Cries: Strawberry Woman / Crab Man; I Loves You, Porgy; A Red-Headed Woman; Clara, Clara; There's A Boat That's Leavin' Soon For New York; Oh, Where's My Bess?; I'm On My Way About The Record: Porgy and Bess is an English-language opera composed in 1934 by George Gershwin, with a libretto written by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin from Heyward's novel Porgy and later play of the same title. Porgy and Bess was first performed in New York City on September 30, 1935, and featured an entire cast of classically trained African-American singers?a daring artistic choice at the time. After suffering from an initially unpopular public reception due in part to its racially charged theme, the Houston Grand Opera production of the opera in 1976 gained it new popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed operas. Gershwin explained why he called Porgy and Bess a folk opera in a 1935 New York Times article: "Porgy and Bess is a folk tale. Its people naturally would sing folk music. When I first began work in the music I decided against the use of original folk material because I wanted the music to be all of one piece. Therefore I wrote my own spirituals and folksongs. But they are still folk music ? and therefore, being in operatic form, Porgy and Bess becomes a folk opera." The libretto of Porgy and Bess tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black beggar living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina. It deals with his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her violent and possessive lover, and Sportin' Life, the drug dealer. Where the earlier novel and stage-play differ, the opera generally follows the stage-play. In 1963, Leontyne Price and William Warfield, who had starred in the 1952 world tour of Porgy and Bess, recorded their own album of excerpts from the opera for RCA Victor. None of the other singers from that production appeared on that album, but John W. Bubbles, the original Sportin' Life, substituted for Cab Calloway (who had played Sportin' Life onstage in the 1952 production). The 1963 recording of Porgy and Bess excerpts remains the only official recording of the score on which Bubbles sings Sportin' Life's two big numbers.