Todd Duncan—the greatest Porgy of them all

Culture

Without a strong lead, Porgy and Bess wouldn’t have made its mark on American culture. This is how George Gershwin found his Porgy. Part 2 of 3.

Author:

By Mark Gould

Original Broadway production featuring Todd Duncan. Photo credit: Vandamm/Opera Magazine collection

When baritone Todd Duncan looked out into the audience of the New York City Opera in 1945, he saw hundreds of people standing and applauding. Duncan felt a deep satisfaction that few in the audience could appreciate.

That night he had made his debut at the New York City Opera, playing the featured role of Tonio in a production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Duncan had many stage credits, but this role was one for the ages. As the curtain dropped, Duncan became the first African American to appear on an opera stage with an otherwise white cast, breaking the long-standing color barrier. The applause he enjoyed would follow him throughout his long and distinguished career, and would help open the doors to many other gifted performers: Leontyne Price, Simon Estes, William Warfield, Grace Bumbry, Clamma Dale, Donnie Ray Albert and many more.

Porgy and Bess was a major stepping stone on Duncan’s pathway to the New York City Opera. Born in 1903 in Danville, Kentucky, Duncan displayed talent for singing and playing piano early, and his mother Nettie found a school that would provide him with the musical challenges he need to grow. Duncan graduated from Butler University in Indiana in 1925 earned a master’s degree at Columbia University Teachers College in New York in 1930. His professors recognized his vocal gifts and knew they had a special talent enrolled at the school.

Duncan’s powerful voice was suited to classical European music and he soon mastered a wide repertoire. He would later share his enthusiasm for classical music with his students as a music professor at Howard University. During that time, he sang in several operas with all-black casts, including a production of Cavalleria Rusticana at the Mecca Temple in New York City in 1934, and was a concert giver on the East Coast.

In the mid 1930s his quiet life of teaching and singing classical music would change dramatically. George Gershwin, the celebrated composer of “Rhapsody in Blue,” “They Can’t Take that Away from Me,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” and many other enduring classics, wanted to compose an American folk opera that would integrate classical music and jazz.

In 1930 he received a commission from the Metropolitan Opera to write that American opera. He had found his inspiration in DuBose Heyward’s book Porgy. Set in Charleston, South Carolina, at the turn of the century in a small black community called Catfish Row, Porgy focuses on its title character, a disabled beggar, who falls in love with Bess, a woman of uncertain background. Porgy’s love and passion for Bess is the emotional centerpiece of the story. Gerswhin wanted to adapt the book to fulfill the Met’s commission, but there was one problem. He wanted the opera to be performed by an all-black cast, but the Met did not allow black artists to perform, so he delayed his decision.

After the publication of the book and a play that was produced on Broadway based on his book, DuBose Heyward was feeling some pressure of his own. Actor-singer Al Jolson, a popular figure of the time, wanted to turn the book, Porgy, into a musical comedy using an all white cast in black face. That caused Gershwin to announce he would proceed with his folk opera, but that instead of premiering at the Met, it would be produced on Broadway with an African American cast.

Gershwin spent nearly two years composing and orchestrating the music. DuBose Heyward would provide much of the plot, dialogue and some lyrics to the songs. George’s brother, Ira, would also contribute lyrics. And then Gershwin, already a legend on Broadway, started to cast the folk opera.

Gershwin auditioned nearly 100 baritones, but was not satisfied. The music critic of the New York Times told him about Todd Duncan, although others later would claim credit for the suggestion.

Gershwin telephoned, but Duncan was not very enthusiastic. “I had not heard of Mr. Gershwin… I didn’t have sense enough to know that here was the most successful man on Broadway who had never had a failure. I thought he was Tin Pan Alley—and I always sang Schubert and Schumann and Brahms,” Duncan told the New York Times in 1978.

“When I arrived at his apartment, I asked him if he could play while I sang,” Duncan said. Gershwin did not respond so Duncan offered to accompany himself. Then Gershwin said, “I’ll try to play for you. I will try.”

Duncan took out the music he had brought along. He had selected an Italian composer’s work, “Lungi dal caro bene” by Secchi. Duncan explained that it was a classic and translated the Italian for him.” I was just naïve enough to do all the right things and not know that I was doing them,” Duncan would later say.

After he sang a few bars, Gershwin asked if Duncan knew the song well enough to sing without the notes. Duncan sang again, and was astonished that Gershwin had already memorized the music. Gershwin stopped him after another eight bars and said, “Will you be my Porgy?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Duncan said. “I’ll have to hear your music.” Gershwin, said Duncan, chuckled and invited him to return to his apartment the following Sunday with Duncan’s wife to hear the score of Porgy and Bess.

The next Sunday, Duncan and his wife, Gladys, returned. To their surprise, many of Gershwin’s friends and colleagues who were planning to produce the opera were crammed into his apartment. That afternoon, Gershwin asked Duncan to sing thirty songs, from opera to spirituals and German lieder. Later, Gershwin, accompanied by his brother, Ira, played most of the folk opera’s score for Duncan. Despite the “awful voices” of Ira and George Gershwin, the music was so beautiful, Duncan remembered that, “ I was in heaven. Those beautiful melodies in this new idiom—it was something I had never heard.”

During the session, Gershwin turned to Duncan and said, “This is your great aria. This is going to make you famous,” It was the song, “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’.” Duncan said it sounded like a banjo song, but it began to grow on him. Duncan would go on to sing it throughout the world for four decades. By the time the session was concluded, and Duncan heard the finale, “I’m on My Way,” he wept.

Listen to an NPR interview with Todd Duncan

Part 1 of this article, told the story of how Porgy and Bess achieved its place in American culture, while part 3, coming February 15 discusses Porgy and Bess’s place in theater and world history.

Your local library will have many books about Porgy and Bess, as well as CDs and DVDs to help you explore the life and times of this historic opera. See the bibliography below.

Porgy and Bess Bibliography prepared by Robbie Green

Operatic Versions

Selections from George Gershwin's folk opera Porgy and Bess (Decca 1940 & 1942), members of original cast and the 1942 Broadway revival cast including Anne Brown, Todd Duncan and Avon Long

Porgy and Bess (Decca/London 1976), Leona Mitchell and the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel

Porgy and Bess (RCA 1977), original cast from the Houston Opera Revival

Porgy and Bess (EMI 1989), studio recording of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera production under the direction of Simon Rattle

Porgy and Bess (Decca 2006), Alvy Powell, Marquita Lister, Nicole Cabell and Robert Mack, with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Mauceri

Porgy and Bess (1952), a live recording, released in 2008, of a 1952 Hamburg Germany performance by the famous Davis/Breen touring company, starring Leontyne Price, William Warfield, and Cab Calloway

Jazz Versions

The Complete Porgy and Bess (Bethlehem 1956), Mel Tormé and Frances Faye

Porgy and Bess (Verve 1957), a collaboration between Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald

Porgy and Bess (Columbia/Legacy 1958), Miles Davis and Gil Evans

Porgy and Bess (Decca 1959), Sammy Davis Jr. and Carmen McRae

Oscar Peterson Plays Porgy & Bess (Verve 1959), Oscar Peterson

Porgy and Bess (RCA 1959), Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne

The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (Atlantic 1965), The Modern Jazz Quartet

Porgy and Bess (Pablo 1976), Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass

Porgy and Bess (RCA 1976), Ray Charles and Cleo Laine

Porgy and Bess (Verve 1997), Joe Henderson

Films and Television