An Opera in Three Acts. Libretto by DuBose Heyward. Lyrics by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. Production Directed by Rouben Mamoulian.
Porgy and Bess An Opera in Three Acts. Libretto by DuBose Heyward. Lyrics by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. Production Directed by Rouben Mamoulian.
Random House, 1935.
First edition, limited issue. Number 126 of 250 copies bound in publisher's full red morocco and signed by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, Ira Gershwin and Rouben Mamoulian. Black morocco label to upper cover titled in gilt, without title labels to spine. Top edge silver. Silken straw weave endpapers. Housed in the original hessian covered slipcase. Frontispiece and pictorial title page by George Biddle. A near fine copy, with a couple of bumps to the covers and light wear to the spine ends.
Gershwin read DuBose Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy, about the Gullah community in South Carolina, in one sitting in the summer of 1926 and "the potential of this book to become the basis of a powerful opera - his opera - jumped out at him. In the morning, he wrote to Heyward saying they ought to get together to discuss the idea." (Walter Rimler, George Gershwin: An Intimate Portrait)
The immediate plan to adapt it into opera was curtailed by Heyward's wife first adapting the novel as a stage play, Porgy and Bess, which opened in 1927. It was not until 1933 that Heyward and Gershwin settled on doing the adaptation, with the agreement on November 3rd 1933 that "Gershwin would write the score, Heyward the libretto, and that Heyward and Ira would collaborate on the lyrics." (Rimler)
On its opening night, September 30th, 1935, Boston's Colonial Theatre gave the performance "a fifteen-minute standing ovation" and though despite this there were early difficulties both financial and critical, the work is now considered Gershwin's masterpiece, with this limited edition signed by the collaborators who brought it to fruition.
Stock ID: 37422
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