Porgy and Bess - Educator Guide

By George Gershwin,DuBose and Dorothy Heyward,and Ira Gershwin

AN EDUCATOR’S GUIDE TO THE OPERALOOK-IN

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

Opera offers a unique teaching opportunity—to explore music through many different disciplines from literature and drama to history and art. This guide and accompanying CDs prepare the students for the Opera Look-In and can also be used as stand-alone classroom activities and resources for teachers. For applicable National Standards, please contact Washington National Opera at 202.448.3466 or at education@dc-opera.org.

WHAT WILL YOU SEE?

Based on a story by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and set to music by George and Ira Gershwin, Porgy and Bess takes center stage for the 2005-2006 Opera Look-In. You and your students will experience demonstrations of musical and technical special effects, as well as a performance of scenes with full staging, costumes, and orchestra. The performance will be sung in English with English supertitles projected above the stage. The estimated running time for the Opera Look-In: Porgy and Bess is 50 minutes with no intermission.

LESSON STARTERS

Music

Many solo vocalists and instrumentalists have recorded Gershwin’s “Summertime,” from jazz saxophonist John Coltrane to rock star Janis Joplin to rhythm and blues singer Fantasia Barrino (of television’s American Idol fame). This classic American song is actually based on the blues, the same unique musical style in which Jasbo Brown, the pianist in Porgy and Bess, plays. To assist you with these listening activities, please cue your Porgy and Bess excerpt CD to Track 1, Introduction: “Summertime” (4:53).

Have your students listen carefully to see if they can identify which instruments (strings, xylophone, horns) are featured in the actionpacked introduction (which in the full-scale opera leads into "Jasbo Brown's Blues"). Ask them questions such as: “How do the rhythms make you feel?” and “What woodwind instrument (clarinet) comes in continued on page 2

Porgy and Bess illustration by Richard Waldrep

WHAT DO YOU WEAR? AND OTHER STUFF…

The following list will help your students enjoy the experience of a day at the opera:

•Dress in what is comfortable, whether it is jeans or a fancier outfit. “Fun casual” is usually what people wear—unless it is opening night, which is typically dressier. Attending an evening opera performance can be an opportunity to get dressed in formal attire.

•Arrive on time. Latecomers will be seated only at suitable breaks—often not until intermission.

•Please respect other patrons’ enjoyment by turning off cell phones, pagers, watch alarms, and other electronic devices.

•At the very beginning of the opera, the orchestra’s concertmaster (the violinist who sits closest to the conductor) will ask the oboe player to play the note “A.” Listen carefully. You will hear that all the other musicians in the orchestra will tune their instruments to match the oboe’s “A.”

• After all the instruments are tuned, the conductor will arrive. Be sure to applaud!

• Feel free to applaud (or shout BRAVO!) at the end of an aria or chorus piece to signify your enjoyment. The end of a piece can be identified by a pause in the music. Singers love an appreciative audience!

• Go ahead and laugh when something is funny!

•Taking photos or making audio or video recordings during a performance is not allowed.

• Do not chew gum, eat, drink, or talk during the performance. If you must visit the restroom during the performance, please exit quickly and quietly. When you return, an usher will let you know when it is appropriate for you to go back to your seat.

• Let the action on stage surround you. As an audience member, you are a very important part of the process that is taking place. Without you, there is no show!

• Read the English supertitles projected above the stage. Usually operas are performed in their original language. Opera composers find inspiration in the natural rhythm and inflection of words in particular languages. Use the supertitles to gain better understanding of the story.

•Listen for subtleties in the music. The tempo, volume, and style of the music and singing depict the feelings or actions of the characters. Also, notice repeated words or phrases; they are usually significant.

Have fun and enjoy the show!

continued from page 1

at the end of this syncopated (edgy, off the beat sounding) introduction and calms things down?”

After your students listen to “Summertime,” ask them to reflect: “What do the music and lyrics tell you about what is happening on stage and at that time of year?”

Challenge: Ask your students to listen to “Summertime” again. This time, encourage them to imagine a picture and descriptive words that come to mind when they hear this music. Then have them draw their pictures, surrounded by their illustrative words.The words can even be arranged into a particular shape that reflects how the students feel when they listen to “Summertime.”

Language Arts/Theater

The dialect spoken by the characters in Porgy and Bess has similarities to the Gullah language and African words. Gullah is a mixture of English and African languages such as Vai, Mende, Twi, Ewe, Hausa, Igbo, and Kikongo. You may recognize some Gullah words that we use today, such as the church song, “Kum Ba Yah,” which in Gullah means Come By Here. In the South, people often call peanuts goobers. Sometimes in restaurants, you can hear music on jukeboxes. All these words come from the Gullah language.

In small groups, have your students select a scene from Porgy and Bess and read or act out the libretto. See if they can read the libretto with and without dialect. You may want to challenge your students to rewrite part of the libretto in their own words and then act it out. Encourage your students to discuss how the opera would change if the libretto had no dialect and

how the dialect helps the audience understand the characters and setting.

In teams, have your students collect regional ways of naming or prounouncing particular words (e.g., soda, sub sandwich, etc.).

Challenge: Encourage your students to explore the question of “Where does ‘standard English’ come from?” and have them research and locate

dialect regions on a map of the United States.

Ask your students to read the quote and discuss the following: “What is your reaction to what Ms. Brown said?” and “How do her words make you feel?”

Have your students research the very famous mezzosoprano who was the first African-American to perform a major role at The Metropolitan Opera (Marian Anderson). Ask them to write about how this operatic heroine overcame society’s limitations by singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Visual Art/Technology

When George and Ira Gershwin were children, silent films were popular. In their teens and early 20s, the Gershwins had the opportunity to enjoy sound films (or talkies). In the same year Porgy and Bess premiered, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created. It was the largest and most comprehensive New Deal agency-providing jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression, including many artists.

In order to give your students perspective on the Great Depression, take a class trip to Old Town Greenbelt in Maryland—a place that showcases Art Deco architecture and WPA sculptures. It also has a museum with Depression-era glass dishware and other artifacts. Please see HELPFUL RESOURCESfor a link to obtain further information about the Greenbelt Museum.

Extended Study: Ask your students to read the folktales, Br’er Rabbit, Bo Rabbit Smart for True, and DuBose Heyward’s The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes Have your students create a comparison chart of similarities and differences of these regional rabbit tales. Challenge your students to identify the moral in each story and how each story reflects human strengths and weaknesses. Your students might also enjoy learning about Gullah culture by viewing an episode of PBS Kids’ “Postcards from Buster,” where the animated rabbit character travels to St. Helena Island. There, Buster visits a young man who shares his Gullah traditions with him. Please see HELPFUL RESOURCES for a link to this episode.

History

After Porgy and Bess opened in New York on October 10, 1935 at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway, the opera went on tour to big U.S. cities for three months. Washington, D.C. was the last stop. Anne Wiggins Brown who played Bess remembers:

As expected we were told that the National Theater (in Washington, D.C.) would be a segregated house. Todd (Duncan) and I refused to perform and were threatened by the Theatre Guild who said we had to sing or ....there would be [many problems]….We [did not give up]. With help from other cast members and political figures such as Mary McLeod Bethune and Ralph Bunche, we succeeded and the National Theater admitted African Americans to a desegregated house. But after our performance, it returned to its original policy of segregation.

Standifer, James. “The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess.” Humanities, 18 (6) November/December 1997.

Challenge: The Greenbelt Theatre opened on September 21, 1938. The opening attraction was “Little Miss Broadway” with Shirley Temple. Watch silent, early sound, and popular films of the 1930s with your students. Ask them to research how technology has changed how we view films.

continued on back page

Gullah Rhythm, from the Carolina Low Country Portfolio, 1934-35, by Palmer Schoppe, lithograph on paper, 1992.02.10 Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association

Title: Greenbelt, Maryland. Federal housing project. Children at the drinking fountain in the shopping center square. Playground is situated in a grove of trees behind the shopping center.

continued from page 3

HELPFUL RESOURCES

Web Sites

http://libretto.musicals.ru/text.php?textid=275&language=1 (Porgy and Bess libretto)

http://pbskids.org/buster/blog/sc_charleston_bl.html

(Postcards from Buster)

http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/gershwin/porgy&bess.html

(Essay on Porgy and Bess)

http://www.co.beaufort.sc.us/bftlib/gullah.htm

(The Gullah dialect and Sea Island culture)

http://www.cofc.edu/avery

(Avery Research Center for African American Culture and History)

http://www.gershwin.com

(The Official George and Ira Gershwin web site)

http://www.gibbesmuseum.org/current.html (Gibbes Museum of Art)

http://www.greenbeltmuseum.org (Greenbelt Museum)

http://www.mnh.si.edu/education/edu_pdfs/gullah_resource_childrensbooks.pdf (Gullah folktale list)

http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1997-11/porgy.html

(Essay on Porgy and Bess)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/porgy

(PBS documentary on Porgy and Bess-Video also available through PBS web site)

Videos

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. Dir. Trevor Nunn. Emd/Capitol, 1993.

The story of Porgy and Bess in three acts, with the London Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle.

Voices of the Gullah Culture: The Hallelujah Singers. South Carolina ETV, 1993.

Recordings

Gershwin, George, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin. Porgy and Bess. The London Philharmonic. EMI Classics 56220, 1997.

With Willard White, Cynthia Haymon, Damon Evans, Harolyn Blackwell, Bruce Hubbard, Cynthia Clarey, Marietta Simpson, and Gregg Baker; the Glyndebourne Chorus; and Simon Rattle, conductor.

——. Porgy and Bess. The Cleveland Orchestra. DECCA 414559, 1985.

With Willard White, Leona Mitchell, Florence Quivar, Barbara Conrad, Arthur Thompson; The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus; and Lorin Maazel, conductor.

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CREDITS

Researcher and Writer:

Adina Williams

Graphic Design:

LB Design

Special thanks to: Gibbes Museum of Art and Greenbelt Museum