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UNSUNG DIRECTOR BEHIND A CLASSIC
by Jonathan Yardley
The Washington Post
July 28, 2013 Sunday
Every Edition
BOOK
"ON MY WAY"
The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and "Porgy and Bess"
By Joseph Horowitz
Norton. 282 pp.
This account of the making of George Gershwin's great "folk opera"
- the term used by Gershwin himself to describe what was, at the
time of its premiere, an almost entirely new genre - takes its title
from the closing scene. This is how Joseph Horowitz describes it:
"Porgy - a crippled beggar who ambulates on a cart pulled by a goat
- learns that Bess, whom he loves, has left for New York. Porgy is
in Charleston, South Carolina, and New York is far away - but he
will somehow get there. 'Bring my goat!' he says. When this request
is met with stupefaction, he repeats it emphatically. The goat is
brought. Porgy mounts his cart. He leads the community in an ecstatic
final song," the essence of which is: "Oh Lawd,/ I'm on my way./
I'm on my way/ To a Heav'nly Lan'."
The song, Horowitz correctly argues, is Porgy's bold assertion of
courage, love and strength of character, the testament of a cripple
determined to rise above his limitations, to claim his life, and
his love, for himself. It is one of the most powerful moments in a
production that has been transformed, in the nearly eight decades
since "Porgy and Bess" opened in New York in the fall of 1935,
from the subject of at times bitter controversy into a cherished
American masterpiece. Horowitz is here to tell us about the central
role played by director Rouben Mamoulian in shaping not merely the
original production but also the script that has since been performed
by innumerable artists in innumerable places.
Horowitz, who has written frequently about American music, is a man
with a mission: to give Mamoulian his due. He writes: "More than
anyone else - more than DuBose or Dorothy Heyward, more than George
or Ira Gershwin - it was Mamoulian who transformed DuBose Heyward's
1925 novella 'Porgy' from a quasi-realistic regional cameo into an
epic theater work, a parable of suffering and redemption." Though the
evidence he presents suggests that Mamoulian did no more than what
would be expected of any skilled director attempting to bring to life
a production venturing somewhat uncertainly into unknown territory,
it's useful to have this assessment of an important and pretty much
forgotten figure.
Accustomed as we are now to having "Porgy and Bess" at the center of
the American cultural landscape, it is a bit difficult to understand
fully just how revolutionary it seemed in 1935 and just how many noses
it managed to bend severely out of shape. It dared to assume the form
of opera at a time when that was assumed to be the sole province of
the great European composers, conductors and singers; its music was
written by a man principally known for jazzy Broadway show tunes,
a man whose ventures into "serious" music - "Rhapsody in Blue,"
"Concerto in F," "An American in Paris" - were sneered at by critics
and flag-wavers for modernism; its cast was entirely African American,
and its black characters were mostly portrayed as real human beings
rather than racial stereotypes.
Mamoulian seems to have been the ideal person to direct it. For one
thing, he had directed the original dramatic version of Heyward's
novella, which opened on Broadway in 1927, was lavishly praised
by Alexander Woollcott and others and "ran for 217 performances on
Broadway, then took to the road." For another, he was deeply attuned
to music: "Mamoulian the director was obsessed with rhythm, with tempo
and meter; that he directed with metronome and baton was a singular
accoutrement. As a youth, he played the violin; as an adult, he
revised and abridged musical scores as vigorously as he did scripts."
He had honed his talents in Rochester in the 1920s, where he was
co-director of the Rochester American Opera Company and where this
native of Armenia "picked up on American slang, vitality, and . . .
informality. And, like many another adaptable exile, he appreciated
things American in ways Americans did not . . . one root of his
subsequent success appropriating the folk traditions of southern
blacks."
But Gershwin, Horowitz accurately acknowledges, is "the opera's
presiding genius"; the "contributions of Heyward, Mamoulian,
and Gershwin cannot be regarded as equivalent, or equivalently
gratifying." Himself principally a critic and historian of classical
music in the United States, Horowitz is uncommonly perceptive about
Gershwin's place in our music. He understands that "Gershwin was in his
lifetime enveloped in an impenetrable fog of opinion that categorized
him as an interloper - ultimately, an outsider, however naturally
gifted, to the citadel of high culture," but he also understands
that Gershwin rose far above all that. He was "the one [American]
composer of genius who could mediate between the high culture of
performance and a popular musical culture in which creativity and
performance were never severed from one another."
Then, "in 1937 at the age of thirty-eight, he died of a brain tumor.
Had he enjoyed a normal span of years, the course of American music
would have changed. More than anyone else, he commanded the talent
to heal the schism between what had become . . . mutually estranged
worlds of American music."
Later Horowitz writes that "Gershwin and Mamoulian were intended
for one another," and he continues: "With their mixed origins and
bold intentions, they were inspired exemplars of cultural exchange,
beneficiaries of the rubbing action of widely intermingled influences.
Born in Brooklyn to Russian parents, Gershwin embraced Tin Pan Alley
and Hollywood, Broadway and Yiddish theater, Paris and Vienna. . . .
Mamoulian was an Armenian born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi). English
was his seventh language, after Armenian, Russian, Georgian, French,
German, and Latin. As a youth, he lived in Paris, studied experimental
theater in Moscow, and debuted as a professional stage director in
London at the age of twenty-five. Both Gershwin and Mamoulian achieved
controversial early fame and influence. They concurrently brought a
layered aesthetic complexity both to Hollywood and to Broadway. They
moved up and down the cultural ladder with clairvoyant assurance."
Horowitz places more emphasis than many other commentators have on
Gershwin's early and deep immersion in classical music. He admired
Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and "a mission to find American identity
in music, fusing New World and Old, came naturally to him." He
was determined "to seek 'American' variants of the 'high' musical
genres," yet he was deeply loyal to the "low" genres in which his
fame had been won and shrugged off complaints that "Porgy and Bess"
was redolent of Broadway: "Gershwin was unashamed of writing songs
for 'Porgy and Bess.' 'Song hits' may be found in Verdi and Bizet,
he wrote," and he was right.
Mamoulian's precise role in shaping the great folk opera will never
be known. Scraps of dialogue and lyrics in his handwriting indicate
an active presence, but there is no definitive record of what was
said and done in rehearsals and behind the scenes. We do know,
from Horowitz, that Mamoulian eventually came to feel that his
contributions were underappreciated, but that probably had as much
to do with the disappointments of his post-"Porgy" career as with
the facts. The mercurial and authoritarian Sam Goldwyn fired him as
director of the film adaptation of the opera and turned it over to
Otto Preminger, who had little feeling for it and made an overblown,
insensitive mess of it.
Mamoulian died in 1987 at the age of 90, disappointed and forgotten.
This book gives him a measure of deserved recognition, but "Porgy
and Bess" remains what it is - an American monument - because of
George Gershwin.
[email protected]
"ON MY WAY"
The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and "Porgy
and Bess"
By Joseph Horowitz
Norton. 282 pp. $26.95
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-26/opinions/40862915_1_dorothy-heyward-great-european-composers-bess
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
by Jonathan Yardley
The Washington Post
July 28, 2013 Sunday
Every Edition
BOOK
"ON MY WAY"
The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and "Porgy and Bess"
By Joseph Horowitz
Norton. 282 pp.
This account of the making of George Gershwin's great "folk opera"
- the term used by Gershwin himself to describe what was, at the
time of its premiere, an almost entirely new genre - takes its title
from the closing scene. This is how Joseph Horowitz describes it:
"Porgy - a crippled beggar who ambulates on a cart pulled by a goat
- learns that Bess, whom he loves, has left for New York. Porgy is
in Charleston, South Carolina, and New York is far away - but he
will somehow get there. 'Bring my goat!' he says. When this request
is met with stupefaction, he repeats it emphatically. The goat is
brought. Porgy mounts his cart. He leads the community in an ecstatic
final song," the essence of which is: "Oh Lawd,/ I'm on my way./
I'm on my way/ To a Heav'nly Lan'."
The song, Horowitz correctly argues, is Porgy's bold assertion of
courage, love and strength of character, the testament of a cripple
determined to rise above his limitations, to claim his life, and
his love, for himself. It is one of the most powerful moments in a
production that has been transformed, in the nearly eight decades
since "Porgy and Bess" opened in New York in the fall of 1935,
from the subject of at times bitter controversy into a cherished
American masterpiece. Horowitz is here to tell us about the central
role played by director Rouben Mamoulian in shaping not merely the
original production but also the script that has since been performed
by innumerable artists in innumerable places.
Horowitz, who has written frequently about American music, is a man
with a mission: to give Mamoulian his due. He writes: "More than
anyone else - more than DuBose or Dorothy Heyward, more than George
or Ira Gershwin - it was Mamoulian who transformed DuBose Heyward's
1925 novella 'Porgy' from a quasi-realistic regional cameo into an
epic theater work, a parable of suffering and redemption." Though the
evidence he presents suggests that Mamoulian did no more than what
would be expected of any skilled director attempting to bring to life
a production venturing somewhat uncertainly into unknown territory,
it's useful to have this assessment of an important and pretty much
forgotten figure.
Accustomed as we are now to having "Porgy and Bess" at the center of
the American cultural landscape, it is a bit difficult to understand
fully just how revolutionary it seemed in 1935 and just how many noses
it managed to bend severely out of shape. It dared to assume the form
of opera at a time when that was assumed to be the sole province of
the great European composers, conductors and singers; its music was
written by a man principally known for jazzy Broadway show tunes,
a man whose ventures into "serious" music - "Rhapsody in Blue,"
"Concerto in F," "An American in Paris" - were sneered at by critics
and flag-wavers for modernism; its cast was entirely African American,
and its black characters were mostly portrayed as real human beings
rather than racial stereotypes.
Mamoulian seems to have been the ideal person to direct it. For one
thing, he had directed the original dramatic version of Heyward's
novella, which opened on Broadway in 1927, was lavishly praised
by Alexander Woollcott and others and "ran for 217 performances on
Broadway, then took to the road." For another, he was deeply attuned
to music: "Mamoulian the director was obsessed with rhythm, with tempo
and meter; that he directed with metronome and baton was a singular
accoutrement. As a youth, he played the violin; as an adult, he
revised and abridged musical scores as vigorously as he did scripts."
He had honed his talents in Rochester in the 1920s, where he was
co-director of the Rochester American Opera Company and where this
native of Armenia "picked up on American slang, vitality, and . . .
informality. And, like many another adaptable exile, he appreciated
things American in ways Americans did not . . . one root of his
subsequent success appropriating the folk traditions of southern
blacks."
But Gershwin, Horowitz accurately acknowledges, is "the opera's
presiding genius"; the "contributions of Heyward, Mamoulian,
and Gershwin cannot be regarded as equivalent, or equivalently
gratifying." Himself principally a critic and historian of classical
music in the United States, Horowitz is uncommonly perceptive about
Gershwin's place in our music. He understands that "Gershwin was in his
lifetime enveloped in an impenetrable fog of opinion that categorized
him as an interloper - ultimately, an outsider, however naturally
gifted, to the citadel of high culture," but he also understands
that Gershwin rose far above all that. He was "the one [American]
composer of genius who could mediate between the high culture of
performance and a popular musical culture in which creativity and
performance were never severed from one another."
Then, "in 1937 at the age of thirty-eight, he died of a brain tumor.
Had he enjoyed a normal span of years, the course of American music
would have changed. More than anyone else, he commanded the talent
to heal the schism between what had become . . . mutually estranged
worlds of American music."
Later Horowitz writes that "Gershwin and Mamoulian were intended
for one another," and he continues: "With their mixed origins and
bold intentions, they were inspired exemplars of cultural exchange,
beneficiaries of the rubbing action of widely intermingled influences.
Born in Brooklyn to Russian parents, Gershwin embraced Tin Pan Alley
and Hollywood, Broadway and Yiddish theater, Paris and Vienna. . . .
Mamoulian was an Armenian born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi). English
was his seventh language, after Armenian, Russian, Georgian, French,
German, and Latin. As a youth, he lived in Paris, studied experimental
theater in Moscow, and debuted as a professional stage director in
London at the age of twenty-five. Both Gershwin and Mamoulian achieved
controversial early fame and influence. They concurrently brought a
layered aesthetic complexity both to Hollywood and to Broadway. They
moved up and down the cultural ladder with clairvoyant assurance."
Horowitz places more emphasis than many other commentators have on
Gershwin's early and deep immersion in classical music. He admired
Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and "a mission to find American identity
in music, fusing New World and Old, came naturally to him." He
was determined "to seek 'American' variants of the 'high' musical
genres," yet he was deeply loyal to the "low" genres in which his
fame had been won and shrugged off complaints that "Porgy and Bess"
was redolent of Broadway: "Gershwin was unashamed of writing songs
for 'Porgy and Bess.' 'Song hits' may be found in Verdi and Bizet,
he wrote," and he was right.
Mamoulian's precise role in shaping the great folk opera will never
be known. Scraps of dialogue and lyrics in his handwriting indicate
an active presence, but there is no definitive record of what was
said and done in rehearsals and behind the scenes. We do know,
from Horowitz, that Mamoulian eventually came to feel that his
contributions were underappreciated, but that probably had as much
to do with the disappointments of his post-"Porgy" career as with
the facts. The mercurial and authoritarian Sam Goldwyn fired him as
director of the film adaptation of the opera and turned it over to
Otto Preminger, who had little feeling for it and made an overblown,
insensitive mess of it.
Mamoulian died in 1987 at the age of 90, disappointed and forgotten.
This book gives him a measure of deserved recognition, but "Porgy
and Bess" remains what it is - an American monument - because of
George Gershwin.
[email protected]
"ON MY WAY"
The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and "Porgy
and Bess"
By Joseph Horowitz
Norton. 282 pp. $26.95
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-26/opinions/40862915_1_dorothy-heyward-great-european-composers-bess
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress