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Record Nr.

UNINA9910814718003321

Autore

Noonan Ellen <1966->

Titolo

The strange career of Porgy and Bess : race, culture, and America's most famous opera / / Ellen Noonan

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chapel Hill, : University of North Carolina Press, 2012

ISBN

1-4696-0025-0

0-8078-3733-4

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (440 p.)

Disciplina

782.1

Soggetti

Music and race

Race in opera

African Americans in popular culture - 20th century

Charleston (S.C.) Race relations

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

A romance of Negro life : Porgy, 1925 -- Interlude : Charleston, 1680-1900 -- A chocolate-covered lithograph strip : Porgy, 1927 -- Interlude : Charleston, 1920 -1940 -- Gershwin's idea of what a Negro opera should be : Porgy and Bess, 1935 -- Neither the measure of America nor that of the Negro : Porgy and Bess, 1952-1956 -- Interlude : Charleston, 1940-1960 -- Forget any version you may have seen before : Porgy and Bess, 1959-2012 -- Epilogue : Charleston, 1970-2005.

Sommario/riassunto

Created by George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward and sung by generations of black performers, Porgy and Bess has been both embraced and reviled since its debut in 1935. In this comprehensive account, Ellen Noonan examines the opera's long history of invention and reinvention as a barometer of twentieth-century American expectations about race, culture, and the struggle for equality. In its surprising endurance lies a myriad of local, national, and international stories.For black performers and commentators, Porgy and Bess was a nexus for debates about cultural representation and