from Porgy and Bess

“Summertime”

“Bess, you is my woman now”

George Gershwin’s greatest achievement, his “folk opera” Porgy and Bess, was first performed in New York in 1935. Since it was much cut on that occasion – the opera wasn’t heard in its complete form until Houston Grand Opera produced it in 1976 – it opened with “Summertime,” which is one of the great lyric inspirations of the twentieth century. A lullaby sung by Clara to her baby, it recurs several times in the score as a kind of symbol of the need for togetherness and mutual support among the poor black residents of Catfish Row.

It is in that spirit that Porgy, a crippled beggar, takes Bess under his protection when her lover, the stevedore Crown, makes himself scarce after killing a man in a drunken brawl. Porgy falls in love with Bess and, though she still fancies Crown, she with him. They express their mutual love in a highly melodious and heart-felt duet “Bess, you is my woman now.” Tragically, Bess’s promise “I ain’t never goin’ nowhere” does not hold true.