One of our favorite pieces of American music is Porgy and Bess, the great George Gershwin masterwork from 1935.
There have been literally hundreds of productions of this Opera since the work first debuted (usually just the highlights of the Opera), and we are fortunate to have a few of them sitting around our offices here.
We've already placed the Miles Davis version for your enjoyment. We have about five others that need to be added. Again, we're proud to present three complete versions of the Opera.
Please note: we have decided not to include the Libretto (even though it has been included in the Liner Notes) for the simple reason that it would be an incredibly difficult task and because we've tried to avoid the placement of "lyrics" on this site for copyright reasons, and there are a whole bunch of lyrics there.
Anyway, we're not going to put any more information about this Opera on this page (this is just a small introduction) since there is so much information about the creation, recording, performance and history of this American masterpiece that it would be redundant to repeat it here, check out the recordings and you will have all the information you could possibly need (especially the Ella and Louis disc).
We're going to list them below, just to keep them sorted out for you:
Miles Davis - Porgy & Bess
Complete Porgy & Bess (1951 Version)
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - Porgy & Bess (1956)
Leontyne Price and William Warfield - Porgy & Bess (1963)
