We are going to Porgy and Bess this weekend. I hope that the performance does not copy the Met’s. Gershwin was a one-of, who combined jazz and bent notes from blues into his compositions. This is the reason Ravel would not take him on as student, because he saw that Gershwin was different and he did not want him to copy classical composers and lose his special gift. The mistake the Met made was to sing Girshwin like you perform any other opera. It comes across flat and unnatural.
After "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" and a recitative, Gershwin writes the first rap song.
Gershwin was not a classical composer.
He was a popular song writer.
He never learned even the basics of orchestration.
American composer Ferde Grofe orchestrated “Gershwin’s” Rhapsody in Blue.