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 ...
Actually, they do. Audience attendance is down for operas because of the new Eurotrash productions which seek to "rethink" everything about an opera. My wife and I were regular season ticket holders for Houston Grand Opera, but we stopped going due to the "revisionist" approaches that are now becoming commonplace. It's expensive to get good seats for an opera. I'm not paying big bucks to see some minimalist modern staging of Mozart.
And please, who said they have to be "exactly the same" every time? I don't expect to see the exact same staging for an opera; but I do expect to see and hear what the composer and librettist wrote.
It is difficult to get everything perfect in an opera. You may have one on DVD in which the staging is poor. Or the soprano is too fat, or the tenor has a poor voice. That is why people listen to/go see different versions of the same old operas/symphonies/Shakespeare plays. Maybe this one will be the one where they get everything right?
Am I correct that you are in favor of re-writing classic works to please young audiences? You'd actually trust some modern PC hack to rewrite Gershwin or Mozart or Puccini?
You have the cause and effect backwards. Audience attendance is down for operas because the average audience age keeps climbing, and once it looked like it might actually pass the average life expectancy they knew things had to change. The “Eurotrash productions” are attempts to get people that aren’t senior citizens to attend.
YOU said the exact same thing every time, if all that’s changing is the staging then nothing is actually changing. You’re wanting a new rendition of a show to be like a new printing of a book, all the same stuff with a new cover. But people don’t buy new editions of books they already own, because it’s the same freaking book. If you want people to go see a show they’ve already seen you need to make it different, you need to make it not just another edition of the book they saw last time around.
This exact replica mentality was a relatively new invention for the 20th century, and is fading away. Prior to then shows were rather heavily modified constantly, and it looks like that trend is returning. Why not rewrite them. All of the “classic” works in their “classic” forms (whatever form they landed on in the “set in stone” era) are recorded and available to own, there’s no reason to recreate them that way. If you’re going to bother to do it again do it different, give it a shot. Maybe it’ll suck, but that’s OK we’ll still have the DVDs and CDs.
I saw a great article by Stephen King talking about why he licenses his stories for adaptation so readily and doesn’t really care how faithful the adaptations are. The crux of his answer was that it doesn’t matter if the adaptations are any good or at all faithful because they don’t make the book go away. They could make the worst movie imaginable from one of his books (and you can argue they actually have a couple of times) but the book is still there.
Performing arts are malleable, at least they always used to be, and they’re trending back to that. Which is the way it should be, they are after all PERFORMING arts and the performers should get a chance to add to it. Any artist that wants his stuff set in stone should sculpt.
If audiences want to see something new, then new stuff needs to be written for them. I do not think you understand what classical music and opera fans are into. That is why I (and others like me) have multiple sets of Beethoven's symphonies, or multiple DVDs of our favorite operas. They are not carbon copies. If they were, one would be enough. The music is still Beethoven's symphonies, but there are enough differences in performance/interpretation to make me enjoy several versions. If it is a performance/interpretation I don't like, then I don't buy it or go to see it. We're talking music that is (in some cases) over 2 hundred years old.
Yes, the performance can be malleable, but I cannot see how you defend the rewriting of a piece to make it more agreeable to modern audiences. I can accept that a producer thinks a given piece will not draw in enough fannies for the seats in the theater. In that case, they should come up with something new and not rape the corpses of greater people who have come before them.
If they want to make wholesale changes to classic texts they can go ahead and do it provided that they clearly advertise it that way (as Sondheim asks them to do in his letter)...’Shakespeare’s Hamlet with additional dialogue by Joe Schmoe’. See how that works out commercially.
I understand that classical music and opera fans are getting old and dieing off and in order for the art form to continue they need NEW fans, under retirement age, maybe even in their 30s or 40s.
Rewriting is a normal part of collaborative arts. Ben Hur has been 4 movies, a TV mini-series and a number of plays. Some times it’s been good, sometimes it hasn’t. That’s what happens with these kind of things, you take it and you rewrite it. There’s no reason why stage shows should be different than movies. You want them to be treated like books, but they’re not books. This is the way things were done for THOUSANDS of years going all the way back to the Greek plays. Resuming the malleability of the material is a RETURN to form, it’s how it should be.
Is it going to be colorized?
Why? That’s a stupid requirement. It’s funny you picked Shakespeare since the versions of his plays we have now best guesses that might not even have been written by him.
Each incarnation of Ben-Hur is now a new creation. Ben-Hur the movie is a separate entity from Ben-Hur the novel (i.e. William Wyler's Ben-Hur). As Borges said to you: advertise it for what it is. Most people know Ben-Hur the movie (or many versions of The Three Musketeers) are adaptations into an entirely different medium of something that originally existed as a printed book. This new Porgy and Bess should not be called "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess". It should be "The Gershwins' and Some Other Guys' Porgy and Bess".
Actually they aren’t really “new” creatons. All of them since the first play (which was adapted from the novel) all acknowledge being based one of the other versions.
If their Porgy and Bess had its starting point with the Gershins’ then it’s “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess”. That’s reality, that’s how these thinks have worked for thousands of years, that’s how they should have worked the last century, and that’s how they’re going back to working. We’ve left the foolishness of the set in stone play behind, and that’s a good thing, and anybody complaining is refusing to adapt to the world.
As a lifetime Gershwin affectionado, I abhore the idea of a “new” version of PORGY. Nothing is wrong with PORGY AND BESS, the music is glorious..so, why change it?
The Houston Grand Opera theatrical production of PORGY, (1976) was the finest production of PORGY done up to that time, simply because no other previous production was as complete. The producers restored songs and scenes that Gershwin cut from the original 1935 stage production simply to make the production “tighter”.
The Houston Grand Opera’s production was AMAZING..I saw this production three times in the ‘70’s; and still revel in the music on the soundtrack album. I’m sorry that this production was never filmed or videotaped.
I’ve since seen other productions of Porgy (most notably, the 2009 Dallas Opera Production, which was terrible, because the conductor had the temerity to RE-WRITE the orchestral arrangements, to make them easier to play and conduct. The end result was horrible.) The Houston Grand Opera’s production of PORGY AND BESS remains the definitive version, in my own opinion.
In the mid ‘90s, the Gershwin Estate approved a TELEVISION production of Porgy that was produced by the BBC, directed by Trevor Nunn, and conducted by Simon Rattle. Yes, it was made in the studio, rather than the stage, which I much prefer..BUT it is GERSHWIN..the music is magnificent..this production is better than having no other Porgy and Bess available on video.
Someone has actually POSTED this television version of
PORGY And Bess on Youtube..it’s divided into 5 parts (22 minutes each part)for YouTube. Here’s the link =
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVS3XEXOFGU
If you actually watch all 5 parts of this version of Porgy and Bess on YouTube, you’ll understand why so many of us love this marvelous Gershwin music.
It’s a stupid requirement to tell the audience what they’re buying? If I say I’m selling Porgy and Bess that sets up certain expectations. People know it and will buy tickets expecting to see an interpretation of what they bought tickets for. Otherwise you’re doing a Bait and Switch. Ben-Hur the novel was never regarded as a significant work of literature anyway hence the lack of uproar at all the adaptations and changes.
Besides, a play or movie based on a book comes with the understanding that it may not resemble the book at all. It’s a completely new work that happens to be based on a work from another medium. If you wrote a novel “inspired” by the opera of Porgy and Bess and made wholesale changes, no one would care. That novel would be credited to you btw and not sold as the original work.
It’s the internet age, they know what they’re buying, there are no secrets in the entertainment industry anymore, you can tell because we’re having this discussion.
The thing you’re missing is that in the end all productions are just like what you’re saying is OK. There’s really no difference between basing a novel on Porgy and Bess and putting it on the stage again, there’s always going to be change. This production IS credited to the people putting it no, they’ve just added “The Gershwins’” to the title.
The Lyric Opera of Chicago did it a couple of years ago and also credited it as the Gershwin’s. That Youtube production linked above also credits it that way.
Regardless, when someone puts on a known work of art in its original medium people are expecting the original and should be informed if changes were made.
And io respond to your comment about Shakespearean authorship, that’s not relevant as we have a text that we’ve come to agree on with expected quibbles among scholars about this or that detail. While directors of Shakespeare routinely omit lines or scenes from the plays, ADDING material is something else entirely and that’s what these people are doing to P&B. It’s like taking or not taking the repeat in a Beethoven symphony - that’s decided by conductor but adding music or altering the music...no.
George Gershwin expressed interest in Dubose Hayward’s book, “PORGY”, after he read it in 1926, as he was thinking of composing a show based on the novel.
However; Al Jolson also expressed interest in the novel as well. Gershwin was busy at the time with other projects, so he graciously bowed out, to allow Jolson to have the rights to the book. Apparently Jolson was toying with the idea of writing a comedy musical show in black face, based on PORGY. This musical never materialized.
Hayward, then; in collaboration with his wife, Dorothy, wrote a play based on PORGY, which debuted in late 1927. Even before the play opened, Hayward was deep in discussion with George Gershwin regarding what became the opera, PORGY AND BESS.
So; Porgy was originally a novel, then became a play, then was further developed as an opera. Ira Gershwin composed some of the lyrics for the Libretto, but both Gershwins unabashedly credited Dubose Heyward as the primary composer of the book, and many of the lyrics of the musical pieces in the opera.
I don’t think people are necessarily expecting the original, I think they’re expecting a production which will certainly have variations.
Ah but the Shakespearean authorship IS actually EXTREMELY relevant. Because the only reason there are these authorship questions is because in his day the art form was known to be malleable, each production of a given play could be dramatically different. This situation is what lead to there being multiple known versions of his plays, which we, long after his death, munged and declared which version was “official” and “proper”. Back then things got omitted AND added. Again what the P&B people are doing is a return to how things used to be, a return to understanding these things are not set in stone and the ENTIRE work is there to be modified as decided upon by the production company. They are free to make modifications as they chose, and anybody that doesn’t like it is free to stay home.
The modifications you consider OK and not OK are simply arbitrary silliness. There’s no real different between adding and subtraction or even altering. If you will allow one then not allowing the others is hypocritical.
The point of the authorship issues is to eventually get to some standard text. King Lear was performed with a happy ending up until almost the 20th century. Shakespeare’s original was considered too cruel and unbearable. Just because something was done a lot doesn’t make it good.
The difference between adding and subtracting is that the latter is still the author’s work and the former is the author plus others. A lot of times this was done in the past for some nobody to gain a writer’s credit. Do you really want to hear a Beethoven symphony with someone else’s music interspersed?
The “point” of the authorship issues is that there wasn’t a standard text to begin with because at that time people realized plays were supposed to be malleable.
Subtracting makes things just as much not the authors work as adding. If we dropped the “to be or not to be” soliloquy Hamlet would be a pretty dramatically changed work, a lot more dramatically changed than any of the additions to P&B will probably result in. But according to your completely arbitrary rules that would just be a subtraction and would OK because it would still be “proper” Shakespeare.
If the “someone else” is talented and interesting sure. Zappa did a lot of interesting classical music drop ins, one of the moments of anticipation of every Tull tour is what they’re going to do with Bourree this time, Picture at an Exhibition is one of ELP’s best albums. There’s still room for “faithful” and “pure” performances of the classics, but we shouldn’t lose site of the fact that it’s the 21st century, we’ve got musical instruments to play with they couldn’t even imagine when they wrote the classics, why not give it a shot every once in a while and see what can be done. It’s not like it destroys the original, Blue Oyster Cult decided to resurrect the Imaginos orchestra for an all electric guitar rendition of Beethoven’s 9th with obviously necessary modifications (as determined by Buck Dharma) it doesn’t mean other versions will cease to exist, the “pure” versions will still be widely available, along with a possibly kick ass version.
Not it would still be Shakespeare’s work just not a complete version of it. Virtually ALL performances of Shakespeare make textual adjustments like that.
There’s nothing stopping people from doing that with music. If you advertise it as such go right ahead. Believe me the original version will draw more crowds. Maybe the first time or two out of novelty but that’s about it.
There are already plenty of adjustments made in performing older music. Ever heard of the Original Instruments movement? Technically the way we hear Mozart and Beethoven is not the way they heard their music performed as the instruments were constructed differently. There are still musicians who think playing Bach on a piano is fraudulent since he didn’t write for the piano which was in its infancy when he was alive.
You just proved me right. Modify modify modify. Performers should do anything they want, the sky is the limit, ignore the whiners, and anybody who doesn’t like it shouldn’t go.
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