Oddly enough, Porgy and Bess is considered by many to be America’s only authentic opera. This is odd because the opera, which was adapted by Ira Gershwin from the novel Porgy, and composed by George Gershwin, is about the descendants of black African slaves.
They live in a slum in Charleston, South Carolina, in the first quarter of the 20th century. They struggle to barely survive. They are uneducated and superstitious. The slum’s bad guy is a drug dealer (Sportin’ Life), and the heroine (Bess) is a whore, and the hero (Porgy) pulls his body around in a cart (he can’t afford a wheelchair). Not one black person contributed to this opera that has no white characters. It’s 100 percent black. And there are lots of critics who have a very low opinion of how these blacks are portrayed. Nevertheless, Porgy and Bess is not only a great (indeed soaring) American opera, but a number of its songs are in the canon of black American culture.
