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|Startsida | Sångare | Andra artister och kreatörer | Libretton | Operahus | Jag och min operavärld | Sökord |
Music:George Gershwin.Lyrics:Ira Gershwin and Dubose Heyward after Heywards novel Porgy.
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First performance: New-York, Alvin Theatre 10 oktober 1935.
The action is set in Catfish Row, a poverty-stricken blank tenement in Charleston, South Carolina. Itīs Saturday night and a card game is in progress. Jake, a fisherman, sings to his wife Clara and their baby. The residents welcome the crippled Porgy, just as the brutish stevedore Crown arrives with his woman Bess. Crown joins in the game of cards but an argument breaks out and Crown kills one of the players, then flees. Porgy takes Bess in. The residents console the dead manīs widow.
Weeks later, Jake leads the fishermen in a song as they work on their nets. Meanwhile Porgy muses on how Bess has changed his life. SportinīLife, a smooth-talking drugdealer, tries to peddle his "happy-dust" and fake lawyer Frazier offers to free Bess from Crown. Bess is invited to a picnic on a island but wants to stay with Porgy, who tells her to go and enjoy herself. Crown confronts Bess at the picnic and begs her to return to him: she finally gives way. Some time later Jake and the fishermen leave for a trip. Bess can be heard calling out- delirious since being found on the island. When she recovers, Bess tells Porgy that she wants to stay with him and he tells her that she has nothing to fear. A storm rises and many take refuge - including Crown - but when Jakeīs boat is found empty, Clara runs out to look for him. Crown follows her into the hurricane.
After the storm, Bess is about to be reclamimed by Crown when Porgy kills him. The police receive no assistance from the residents of Catfish Row, but they take Porgy to identify the body. While he is away, Bess is tricked and then drugged by SportinīLife into leaving with him for New-York. When Porgy returns from jail he is told that Bess has left with Sportinī Life; he resolves to find her and, as the curtain fall, he prepares to make the journey north.
