# You is my woman now....



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Wonderful! Just awesome! I saw this before yesterday in Broadway. These were the singers. I think I'm lucky.






An incredible parallel between Emile Zola's _l'assomoir_ and Porgy and Bess can be done.

Sincerely

Martin


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I would like to have seen it in an opera house, no microphones, sung over a full orchestra - which I did, when a child.

Though the singing is fine enough, there are a few 'contemporary' stylization spins on this which irritate me no end. If there are 'period' style traits to this, like any other Gershwin, they should be done straight in that style.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Whether this is a musical comedy or an opera...this can be discussed for ever. For me this is rather a musical...or an "in between"...The "not-happy" ending shows that this could be "accepted" as an opera. An opera inspired in the French naturalism of Emile Zola, where fate is already written and poor and miserable people are doomed...Porgy and Bess is a masterpiece. Gershwin used jazz to express the new American reality.

Martin


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## Kindablue (May 14, 2012)

I first found an operatic version of _Porgy and Bess _a few years ago after falling in love with the Miles Davis album. The 1989 recording with Simon Rattle conducting is my favorite version (Trevor Nunn did a great film using it in 1993). The 1959 film is also worth checking out, mostly for Sammy Davis Jr.'s performance as Sportin' Life. I don't know if you've read it, but Stephen Sondheim wrote a letter to the editor (here) of _The New York Times_ when this show was announced. It's rather, um, polemical, but I mostly agree with it--having never, of course, as he hadn't at the time of writing that, seen the thing.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Kindablue said:


> I first found an operatic version of _Porgy and Bess _a few years ago after falling in love with the Miles Davis album. The 1989 recording with Simon Rattle conducting is my favorite version (Trevor Nunn did a great film using it in 1993). The 1959 film is also worth checking out, mostly for Sammy Davis Jr.'s performance as Sportin' Life. I don't know if you've read it, but Stephen Sondheim wrote a letter to the editor (here) of _The New York Times_ when this show was announced. It's rather, um, polemical, but I mostly agree with it--having never, of course, as he hadn't at the time of writing that, seen the thing.


Mmm... Miles Davis seems to be just 1 CD, thus incomplete...n'est-ce pas?









Martin


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## Kindablue (May 14, 2012)

Yeah, it's less than an hour long. He really just took some arias and songs from the opera--I read someone call them "bleeding chucks" in another thread--and created a coherent jazz album out of them, which took some effort with some of it. I mean, while parts of the original _Porgy and Bess _are inspired by jazz music, none of it really is jazz music. Even _Summertime_, a jazz standard, isn't jazz. _Prayer_ in particular is really good, but I think the album does a good job in general of retaining the feel of the original.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Kindablue said:


> Yeah, it's less than an hour long. He really just took some arias and songs from the opera--I read someone call them "bleeding chucks" in another thread--and created a coherent jazz album out of them, which took some effort with some of it. I mean, while parts of the original _Porgy and Bess _are inspired by jazz music, none of it really is jazz music. Even _Summertime_, a jazz standard, isn't jazz. _Prayer_ in particular is really good, but I think the album does a good job in general of retaining the feel of the original.


mmm...I'll pass...I would prefer a complete version, but I'm not sure I want the Houston version...









3 CDs. I didn't know the original was so long.

It seems more classical than Gershwin composed it himself.

Martin


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

The DVD is very good:


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

mamascarlatti said:


> The DVD is very good:


I got it! It is ok.

I heard Summertime on youtube by Miles Davis and it was just the trumpet (???) Is the version Kindablue recommended me just orchestra?

Martin


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## Kindablue (May 14, 2012)

myaskovsky2002 said:


> I got it! It is ok.
> 
> I heard Summertime on youtube by Miles Davis and it was just the trumpet (???) Is the version Kindablue recommended me just orchestra?
> 
> Martin


Sorry if I was unclear. The Davis album isn't an opera or a musical, and it's completely instrumental. It's orchestrated with a brass jazz band, with Davis playing the main vocal melodies with his trumpet most of the time. Compare this with that.

That Houston Grand Opera recording looks interesting; I might try to find it soon.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Kindablue said:


> Sorry if I was unclear. The Davis album isn't an opera or a musical, and it's completely instrumental. It's orchestrated with a brass jazz band, with Davis playing the main vocal melodies with his trumpet most of the time. Compare this with that.
> 
> That Houston Grand Opera recording looks interesting; I might try to find it soon.


Then...it is not my cup of tea...

Martin


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