Through this brief, swift scene, the dramatic line-up is quickly made clear. Grimes is a peculiar, silent, gruff man thoroughly distrusted by almost the entire village, but pitied and befriended by Ellen and understood only by Balstrode, a retired merchant skipper. Peter is advised not to take on any more boys as assistants—or to get a woman to look after him if he does. A woman is precisely what Peter aspires to have, and Ellen specifically. This becomes clear when the couple are left alone; but it also becomes clear in their duet that until he has cleared his name and reputation, he feels too bitter about the town gossips to tie her to himself.
ACT I
Scene 1 Several days later, there is the usual crowd on the street by the sea, outside the “Boar Tavern,” with the moot hall on one side and Ned Keene’s apothecary shop on the other. The retired sea captain, Balstrode, sits on the breakwater eyeing a coming storm; fishermen are welcomed into the “Boar” by Auntie; a methodistical fellow, named Bob Boles, refuses to have anything to do with them; Ned Keene joshes Auntie about the two girls who are the main attraction of her pub and whom she refers to as her “nieces”; “Mrs. Nabob” tries secretly to get more laudanum from Keene; and everyone busily comments on the scene and on the worsening weather. Among the crowd is the figure of Dr. Crabbe (the respected physician who wrote fine books which inspired this opera). Amidst all this, Grimes asks for help in hauling up his boat, but only Balstrode and Keene will give him a hand. The latter tells him he has secured a new boy for him from the workhouse, but that he will have to be called for. Hobson, the carter, refuses to do this job, giving the excuse that he cannot supervise the boy and do all his other errands as well; but Ellen saves the day—much to almost everyone’s disapproval—by offering to go along and take care of the lad. She even turns on the crowd and in an aria (Let her among you without fault) lectures them for their lack of Christianity.
The storm is rising now in earnest, both on the stage and in the orchestra pit, and after a large concerted number on this subject (Look out for squalls), the stage is left alone to Grimes and Balstrode. The retired captain advises Peter to leave the village and enlist with a merchantman, but the grim young man is bound to fight his fight against the village, win over its respect by prospering, and then marry Ellen. “She’ll have you now,” suggests Balstrode. But Grimes will not be married out of pity, and he grows angry at the older man for tendering him good advice. And when Balstrode goes off to help Auntie shutter up her pub, Grimes closes the scene with a passage in which he passionately yearns for the comfort of Ellen’s breast.
Scene 2 The interlude depicts the storm growing ever stronger, and it is still raging when the curtain goes up on the inside of the “Boar” at 10.30 that night. “Mrs. Nabob” is there hoping to get her laudanum from Keene; the two “nieces” come in in their night-clothes, afraid of the storm; and the methodistical Boles, now quite drunk, tries to make passes at them. Fortunately, Captain Balstrode is there to keep him under control.
Grimes comes stumbling in out of the storm without the oilskins all the others are wearing, and looking like a thing completely apart. That is how he is treated, and when he sings a strange song about the stars and the storm (Now the great Bear), the drunken Boles decides the man has sold his soul to the devil and tries to hit him over the head with a bottle. Balstrode intervenes once more, and peace is temporarily restored as everyone breaks into an elaborate and effective round concerning fishing, three strikingly different tunes being sung simultaneously. But when the strong tenor voice of Peter takes up the round alone with a saturnine variation on the words, the others recoil temporarily in horror, then take it up again. At the climax, Hobson the carter breaks in accompanied by Ellen and the new boy for Grimes; and the scene closes as Grimes insists on taking the boy home directly, despite the storm and despite the fact that it has washed away the cliff outside his house.
ACT II
Scene 1 It is several weeks later and a fine, sunny Sunday morning, as the music of the intermezzo (or Act II Prelude) suggests. Ellen is outside the church, whence issue sounds, now and again, of the music of the service and even a portion of the sermon. Ellen sits knitting, sings philosophically about the weather, and speaks comfortingly to little John, Grimes’s new apprentice, who stands gloomily by never uttering a sound. Presently she discovers a tear in his coat and a bruise on his neck. Peter, she realizes, has been maltreating the boy despite his promises to reform. The gloomy fisherman comes in to get the boy to go out in his boat and roughly repulses Ellen when she asks that the child be allowed to rest on Sunday at least. No, says Peter, he must solve his problems by “lonely toil,” by amassing wealth, and forcing the good opinion of The Borough. In despair, Ellen declares that this plan is not a good one, that they have failed together. Peter cries out in anguish, strikes the woman he thought would save him, and runs off after John.
But Boles, Keene, and Auntie have overheard some of this quarrel, and they come out from their shops and sing a trio—Grimes is at his exercise. Gradually the stage fills with the congregation from the church, and a strong feeling against Grimes is again worked up despite Ellen’s attempts to explain what had happened. The chorus works up to a pitch where they feel sure that murder is afoot, and a party of men is organized to go to Grimes’s place expecting to find him doing something dreadful. Even the respected Balstrode cannot dissuade them, especially after the Rector is persuaded that something must be done. Only Auntie, her “nieces,” and Ellen remain behind to sing a quartet about the childishness of men:
Shall we smile or shall we weep
Or wait quietly till they sleep?
Scene 2 Grimes’s hut turns out to be only an upturned boat, but it is in ship-shape order. There are two doors—one to the road, the other to the cliff that, as we have heard, has been recently washed away in the storm. Peter shoves the boy into the hut and throws his sea-going clothes towards him. The boy only sniffles, and Peter has a long aria in which he speaks of his ambition to have a good home with Ellen and with children of theirs. But at its close, he seems to be haunted by a vision of the boy who had died in the boat. Just then he hears the posse on its way up. He thinks the boy has been complaining about him, and rudely pushes him out of the hut on the cliff side. Then he climbs out after him—and we hear a terrible scream: the boy has fallen down the cliff that isn’t there. But the posse has not heard it; and when they come snooping in, they are only impressed with the neatness and innocent appearance of the hut. Ironically, Swallow is inspired to comment that this should put an end to the anti-Grimes gossip; but Balstrode, looking out of the hut on the cliff side, remains there after the others depart.
ACT III
Scene 1 After a quiet prelude, descriptive of the moonlight, the curtain rises on the street outside the “Boar Tavern.” It is an evening several days later, and first a polka, later a waltz, is heard as it is danced at the tavern. Outside, the drunken Swallow makes heavy-handed advances to the “nieces,” and when they have escaped him, Mrs. Sedley tries to impress Ned Keene with her suspicions about Grimes and his new apprentice, who have not been seen for two days. Keene only laughs at her. Then, after a group of respectable folk have said goodnight to the Rector and Dr. Crabbe, Ellen and Balstrode come in, much worried. Though Peter has been missing two days, his boat is still on land, and Ellen has found the boy’s jersey, all wet. They fear the worst, and go off, rather hopelessly, to try to help him. Mrs. Sedley then seeks out Swallow, insists that Grimes’s disappearance without his boat clearly points to murder, and finally manages to work up the people to a point where they are ready to form another posse to go after the outcast.
Scene 2 After a strange intermezzo, suggesting the madness that is finally descending on Peter Grimes, we see him, several hours later, beside his boat. Off-stage, the calling of the posse is heard now and again, as he has a long, weird scene by himself. He sings of the sea, refers to the deaths of his apprentices, imagines he is again with Ellen, curses his persecutors and defies them. Ellen
and Balstrode come upon him there; and over Ellen’s protest, Balstrode—quietly and in a speaking voice—advises Peter to take his boat out to sea and sink with it. In a kind of trance, and with Balstrode’s help, Peter launches his boat.
Dawn comes, and with it the mob enters and disperses. Life in the fishing village starts again; Swallow notes that the coastguard reports a boat sinking at sea; they decide it is just a rumor; and everyone goes about his business.
PORGY AND BESS
Opera in three acts by George Gershwin with
libretto in English by DuBose Heyward and Ira
Gershwin, based on the play Porgy by DuBose
and Dorothy Heyward
PORGY, a cripple Bassbaritone
CROWN, a stevedore Baritone
BESS, his girl Soprano
JAKE, a fisherman Baritone
CLARA, his wife Soprano
ROBBINS, an inhabitant of Catfish Row Tenor
SERENA, his wife Soprano
SPORTING LIFE, a dope peddler Tenor
PETER, the honeyman Tenor
UNDERTAKER Baritone
Time: the 1920’s
Place: Charleston, South Carolina
First performance at Boston, September 30, 1935
As a play, Porgy, by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, was a success. But when Mr. Heyward and Ira Gershwin made an opera libretto of it, with music by Ira’s brother George, it was a smash hit. The general critical opinion was: “Here is the first completely successful and completely American opera.” That was in 1935. Since its first successful run—first in Boston and later on Broadway—it has been repeatedly revived, sometimes with spoken dialogue, sometimes with Gershwin’s original recitatives. It reached Europe in 1945, when it was given in Switzerland and Denmark with largely European casts; but it did not become really popular on that continent till an all-Negro company toured there in 1952–53. when Germany and Austria could not seem to get enough of it, while London provided crowded houses for several months on end. No previous or subsequent American opera—not even Gian Carlo Menotti’s great successes—seems to have found so strong a place in the Western world’s musical life. And even the East, at least as represented by Soviet Russia, has welcomed it enthusiastically.
ACT I
Scene 1 is a square in Catfish Row, Charleston, South Carolina. Here aristocrats once lived, but now Negro workers are crowded into it. The atmosphere of a hot, southern, summer night is set at once by the lovely lullaby Summertime, sung by the contented young wife and mother, Clara. Her husband, Jake, expresses the local male attitude toward the opposite sex in the jolly tune A Woman Is a Sometime Thing. Porgy, a cripple well liked in Catfish Row, comes in on his goat cart. The crap game, begun casually enough, develops in earnest, and becomes even more exciting when Crown takes part, for Crown is the local bully. A fight springs up like a flash fire, and Crown kills one of the men. Immediately he has to run off, leaving his girl Bess there. One of the flashier fellows, Sporting Life, tries—and fails—to get Bess to go with him to New York, and the women all shut their doors on her.
This is Porgy’s chance. He had always loved Bess, but from a distance because he was a cripple. Now she has no other place to turn, and as the scene ends, she enters Porgy’s home.
Scene 2 takes place in the room that used to be occupied by Serena and Robbins, but it is Robbins who has been murdered by Crown, and Serena’s neighbors are now gathered to sing over the body and to collect money for the funeral. Porgy, accompanied by Bess, comes in and contributes money and, a natural-born leader, he takes the principal part in the prayers and encouragement. Serena herself sings a deeply moving dirge (My Man’s Gone Now). A pair of white detectives breaks in on the sorrowing group to warn Serena that the body must be buried the next day. Before they leave, they drag off with them old Peter, a perfectly innocent suspect.
A rather sympathetic undertaker—also white-now comes in; and although not enough money for a funeral has been collected, he accepts Serena’s promise to pay up later. The mourners approve of this, and the act ends as Bess leads them in a rousing song beginning: “Oh, the train is at the station.”
ACT II
Scene 1 It is now a month later in Catfish Row, and even though the September storms are due, the fisherman Jake is getting ready to sail for the blackfish banks. As for Porgy—he is living with Bess and is completely happy. He sings about it in fetching syncopation: I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin—and “nuttin’s” plenty for him. He even buys a fake divorce for Bess—a divorce from Crown, to whom she never was married—and he gets good news about his friend, old Peter, who is to be let out of jail. This is the occasion for another happy song—the Buzzard Song, originally cut out of the score by Gershwin in order to make the opera shorter. Sporting Life now makes one more attempt to get Bess to leave with him, but Porgy, a powerful man even though a cripple, scares the little nuisance almost to death. Left alone at last, Porgy and Bess sing the love duet, Bess, You Is My Woman Now.
A military band comes on now, followed by the crowd getting ready for a community picnic to Kittiwah Island. At first Bess wants to stay with Porgy, but when Porgy urges her to have fun, she goes along.
Scene 2 is at the picnic on Kittiwah Island. Sporting Life sings his worldly-wise ditty, It Ain’t Necessarily So, and this is followed by a brief, dramatic scene between Crown and Bess. Crown—still hiding from the police—emerges from a thicket. He manages to get Bess alone, and she finds it impossible—in spite of her love for Porgy—to resist him.
Scene 3 begins at dawn one week later. There are threats of a storm, as Jake the fisherman prepares to leave Catfish Row. As for Bess, she has been unconscious for a week after her encounter with Crown on Kittiwah Island. Her neighbor Serena, Porgy, and others pray over her, and finally “Dr. Jesus” makes her well. Somehow Porgy knows she has been with Crown, and he tells her so. But he forgives her, and she admits she has promised to return to Crown. She wants to stay with Porgy but fears her own weakness should Crown return. Porgy promises to defend her against him.
Scene 4 takes place in Serena’s room. The terrible storm is now at its height, and all the superstitious neighbors are praying, for some of them really believe that Judgment Day is at hand. Suddenly Crown forces his way in. He taunts the crippled Porgy and shocks everyone by claiming God as his friend. But when Clara sees—through the window—that her husband Jake’s boat is overturned, it is only Crown who is ready to help. Leaving the baby with Bess, Clara follows Crown out into the raging storm.
ACT III
Scene 1 All three short scenes in this act take place in Catfish Row. The first opens with the women mourning the loss of Jake, Clara, and Crown in the storm. But Sporting Life wanders in and hints that Crown has survived somehow. Offstage, when the square is deserted, one hears Bess singing Clara’s lullaby to the little orphan.
Then Crown appears, crawling toward Porgy’s door, from which he can hear Bess’s voice. As he passes the window, the powerful hands of Porgy shoot out, seize Crown by the throat, and quietly choke him to death. “Bess, you got a man now,” he remarks. “You got Porgy.”
Scene 2 A few hours later a detective comes to find Crown’s murderer, and after some questioning he drags off Porgy to identify the body. This is Sporting Life’s chance. Thinking himself rid of both his rivals, he again starts to woo Bess, promising to take her to a great life in There’s a Boat That’s Leavin’ Soon for New York, a jazzy description of the joys of Harlem. He also tempts the girl with drugs—“happy dust,” he calls it; and Bess, though she talks harshly to her tempter, is obviously weakening.
Scene 3 One week later Porgy returns, for the police have not been able to charge him with the murder. He looks everywhere for his Bess. Finally he learns that she has gone to New York with Sporting Life. He knows nothing about New York—only that it is far north, way “past the custom house.” Crippled as he is, he calls for his goat and cart. As the opera ends, he is being sped on his way by all his neighbors, and he leads them in
a chorus like a spiritual (Oh, Lawd, I’m on My Way).
PRINCE IGOR
(Knyaz Igor)
Opera in prologue and four acts by Alexandre
Porfyrevich Borodin with the help of Nikolai
Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakoff, Alexandre Konstantinovich
Glazounov, and Anatol Konstantinovich
Liadov, with libretto in Russian by
Vladimir Vasilevich Stassov and the composer,
based on a medieval prose poem of unknown
origin entitled Song of the Army of Prince Igor
PRINCE IGOR Baritone
YAROSLAVNA, his wife Soprano
VLADIMIR, his son Tenor
PRINCE GALLITZKY, her brother Bass
gudok players
SKOULA Bass
EROSHKA Tenor
Polovtsian khans
KONTCHAK Bass
GZAK Bass
KONTCHAKOVNA, Kontchak’s daughter Mezzo-soprano
OVLOUR, a Polovtsian renegade Tenor
YAROSLAVNA’S NURSE Soprano
Time: 1185
Places: Poutivle and the camp of the Polovtsians
First performance at St. Petersburg, November 4, 1890
Let us start, for once, by giving credit to a critic. Vladimir Vasilevich Stassov was the monstrously learned archaeologist, librarian, and music critic who constituted an intimate adjunct to the Mighty Five of Russia—Balakirev, Cui, Borodin, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff. Among the many services he performed for these composers (including writing biographies of all but Balakirev) was the suggestion to Borodin of Prince Igor as the subject for an opera. Not only did he suggest it, he also wrote out a synopsis for the libretto.
100 Great Operas and Their Stories Page 36