Porgy and Bess with Rhiannon Giddens

Rhiannon Giddens unpacks a song you’ve probably heard a hundred times in all different styles: “Summertime” from the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.

Giddens, and her guests, Golda Schultz, Naomi André, Victoria Smalls, and Eric Owens, explore not just the lyrics and music, but how Porgy and Bess came into being and the way it draws on the culture of the Gullah Geechee, descendants of formerly enslaved people living in and around South Carolina.

Rhiannon Giddens Aria Code podcast, “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess: Rise Up Singing“

Decoding two arias – “Summertime” and “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” – the show finds uncomfortable contradictions as well as uncanny parallels between the real lives of the Gullah people and the characters onstage.

Yes, there’s hardship. And there’s beauty, there’s power, there’s spirituality, and there’s hope.

From the transcript:

Composer George Gershwin and his brother, Ira Gershwin, as well as novelist DuBose Heyward and playwright Dorothy Heward, an all-white team, created this show about black life in South Carolina.

DuBose Heyward was born and raised in Charleston at the turn of the last century. He spent some time living down the street from a black tenement community called Cabbage Row. That community would become the inspiration for Catfish Row, the setting of his bestselling novel Porgy.

Porgy is about a disabled beggar who falls in love with the troubled Bess — she dates abusive men, she’s addicted to drugs, and she eventually follows her dealer all the way up to New York City, breaking Porgy’s heart.

One of the novel’s biggest fans is George Gershwin. He writes to Heyward and they set plans to turn Porgy into an opera.

Gershwin spends a few months just south of Charleston on James Island and Folly Beach, absorbing the language, music, and culture of the Gullah community living there.

He takes it all in and blends it with other musical influences deeply rooted in the African American community, like jazz and spirituals… And out of this fusion comes the first great American Opera: Porgy and Bess.

The Gershwins and the Heywards felt strongly that this story could only be told by black performers. From the very first performance, every black character has always been played by a black singer, and that’s the way it will always be — it’s included in all performance licenses by the Gershwin family.

With an acclaimed cast that has sung in the great houses and concert halls of the globe, the Greensboro Opera’s production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess is sure to be one of the best offerings in the opera world this season.

Giddens will be singing the role of Bess for the first time in her hometown, Greensboro, North Carolina.

For more information on the Greensboro Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess, featuring the incomparable Rhiannon Giddens, visit greensboroopera.org/event/porgy-and-bess.