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[[images - three actors from Porgy and Bess]]

Porgy and Bess 

Gershwin's final work of "serious" cast is probably his greatest: the "Negro folk opera" Porgy and Bess. It was written after he had finished his course of study with Joseph Schillinger and, whatever the values of that study so much discussed and disputed since, the composer revealed a new mastery and new dimension in the work at hand. The idea of writing an opera had haunted Gershwin ever since the abortive 135th Street fo 1922. Many years before actual writing began on Porgy, he discussed the idea of turning the famous novel of that name by DuBose Heyward into a musical stage piece in collaboration with its author. 

But, other activities kept them from completing the idea. Then, quite suddenly, Gershwin re-opened the project. Heyward responded that he was willing. In the years since the appearance of his novel, he had fashioned his plot into a successful drama which Gershwin characterized "the most outstanding play I know about colored people". Still, Gershwin procrastinated for a long while and he was pressed into final activity only when in mid-1933, Heyward contacted him to gain a release from their tentative agreement to work together. 

The Theatre Guild had asked Heyward to collaborate with Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II on a musical version of Porgy. A flurry of activity began immediately. Gershwin requested that Heyward and his wife, Dorothy, with whom the author had collaborated on the stage version of Porgy, begin to fashion "not a new version that will be a play with music, but something like an operatic libretto."

Meanwhile, Ira Gershwin, whom it was agreed would fashion the lyrics of the venture, hastened off to Charleston, the locale of the drama, to soak up local color. As the libretto took shape and music and lyrics began to stream from two Gershwin pens, the Metropolitan Opera became interested. Gershwin was offered a large bonus if he would assign the work to the Metropolitan for first performance. But, Gershwin knew that the great opera organization would only mount his work three of four times a season. He longed for a large audience–thus he assigned stage rights to the Theatre Guild. Work progressed throughout the rest of 1933, all of 1934, and well into 1935. 

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