The "white" Porgy and Bess from Budapest, racism, cultural appropriation or possibility?

I would have preferred that the first post on my blog on this masterpiece had been a review on complete live performance. However, the last ones that took place in Madrid were seven years ago, by the Cape Town Opera. I'm talking, of course, about Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin, with a libretto by his brother Ira and DuBose Heyward. In 1935, Gershwin premiered this opera first in Boston and shortly later in Broadway. The plot was about the experiences and adventures of a Southern African American community in a ficticious town.

It was a time when African Americans suffered strong social and legal discrimination, when in this country racism was institutional, with lynchings of black people being very common nationwide. The Gershwins opted for a production with classically trained black singers, something daring at the time, when none of the major American companies wanted to hire them. It was not without controversy: after all, two white Jews had created an opera about a black community, with stereotypes everywhere, and as decades transcurred, it was criticised and neglected for that reason, despite its musical popularity in the Jazz world. The fact that his catchy and wonderful songs soon became classics of Jazz, as mentioned, a musical genre which Gershwin wanted to fuse with classical music, something very daring in his time, did not help this work to achieve the status of grand opera it deserved in his own country, until the 1976 Houston production, and its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1985, despite it  was reckoned in Europe because of continuous tours during decades. 

The fact that the Gershwin family, starting with the composer himself, - who disdained a proposal to premiere it at the Met with white singers, and also a project with the legendary Al Jolson, both for using blackface - to restrict the interpretations of this opera only for black singers (something that fortunately is not limited to African-American singers, since the Cape Town Opera from South Africa has toured it around the world and with success in the 2010s, and so did the company of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, Cuba, in the early 2000s), is one of the main reasons why, despite the fact that this opera is part of the classical repertoire, it is not performed as often as it should.

In 2018, the Budapest Opera surprised everyone when it announced that it would integrate this opera into its repertoire, sung by its own singing company, whose members are all white. The controversy was immediate: the fact that this production took place in Hungary, a country known for its xenophobic and ultra-conservative government, and with high rates of racism in its society, not only raised suspicion but also sparked outrage in the United States, both within the African-American community as well as in the most progressive sectors of the country, who saw yet another example of white oppressive racism, which committed cultural appropriation of an African-American history, even when its stereotypes would be today more noticed and unsettling than they used to be in the 1930s. Such a wave of indignation, probably hadn't been seen in operatic stage since the Metropolitan Opera House in New York premiered Parsifal, by Richard Wagner, illegally in 1903, unleashing the same outrage in Germany.

Finally, in order to perform it, the Hungarian cast had to issue a signed statement professing an African-American identity, and post alongside performance advertisements that "the manner in which this production of Porgy and Bess is produced is unauthorized, and is contrary to the requirements for the presentation of the work". And yet, despite all this, the company's director, Szilvester Okovács (aligned with Viktor Orbán's government), stated that the Gershwins' restriction was racist, and that Hungary, lacking a colonial past, could not have of a company of black singers to represent this opera as the composer's state requieres. The performances were sold out, although criticism about the quality of the show was mixed.

In the absence of a complete streaming to judge the show properly, there are several videos uploaded on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. Directed by András Almási-Tóth, with sets by Sebastian Hannak, it takes the action from the original Catfish Row, to a refugee center in Europe, in an undetermined time, although the aesthetics of Krisztina Lisztopád's costumes , which also puts stiff hairstyles and dreadlocks on the women, indicates that it could be the 60s or 70s. It has even been stated that it was during the time of flower power. A single set presides the entire work: it is a white building, which the characters access from a staircase that connects the stage with one of the proscenium boxes, although a strange mural, also with a 70s aesthetics, from which lights emanate, It is located to the right of the stage. There is an important presence of dance, choreographed by Dóra Barta, which turns to be excessive, especially in the penultimate scene of the work, where it really makes no sense. We can watch a 20-minute extract from Act 1 on YouTube.  Everyone is asleep, while Clara sings Summertime, and after the song, they are woken up by Sportin' Life. Porgy appears in a coat and dreadlocks, and Bess appears dancing cheerfully, being the antithesis of Clara. In his famous aria It ain't necessarily so, Sportin' Life appears dancing and moving around the stage, although accompanied by the corps de ballet. During his brief intervention, the crab seller is seen flirting with a woman who could be Bess, and at the end, we see the nonsense of the dance corps, as confetti falls on the stage (an allegory of drugs?), and Bess and Sportin' Life leave the stage via the stairs and the proscenium box. 

István Dénes conducts the Budapest Opera orchestra in most selections, notably, including excellently in the first aria of Porgy and that of Sportin'Life, although the trumpet sometimes cracks the notes. The choir does a big effort, and succeeds. The cast makes an effort too,  their lack of affinity with the musical styles is noticeable. The Porgy sung by the baritone Marcell Bakonyi is excellent. He  alternated these 2022 performances with Willard White! One wonders how the legendary performer of this opera could get involved such a show. Sportin' Life was sung by the musical singer János Szemenyei,  achieving a funny and well sung performance of "It ain't necessarily so", which the tenor Laszlo Boldiszar does not achieve in the other uploaded extract. More discreet are the Crown by Csaba Szegedi and the Jake by Máté Fülep. Beatrix Fodor does not seem to have had her best day singing the beautiful Summertime, lacking the final high note. Lilla Horti is a strident Bess. Janos Szerékovan as the crab seller has a good tenor tone of character. In an almost exclusively all.white cast, a black man, the Guinea-Bissau actor Marcelo Cake-Baly (stablished in Hungary, with son having a seat in the Parliament until 2021) in the role of the policeman, and who appears briefly in one of the trailers, the mixed-raced actor (whose father was Arab) Artúr Kalid  in the role of the detective and the boy Rafael Abebe-Ayele in the role of Scipio, are the only "ethnic" exceptions in the cast.

The controversy is posed even to the viewer himself. On the one hand, one also has the feeling not to be watching Porgy and Bess, but something different, and even with the music it is difficult to recognize the work. Going against Gershwin's instructions, knowing that the black singers would be more likely to be familiar with the musical styles of the work than the white ones, in addition to the fact that with them the work would have its only possible dramatic credibility, leads to seeing this production as a big offence. 

On the other hand, in a globalized world, for the rest of the operatic repertoire the ethnicity of the singer stopped mattering a long time ago, and the proof is the number of Black and Asian singers who have become opera legends, despite the fact that there is still much to do, for non-whites to reach the major operatic stages. If we have more and more Latino, Asian or Black  Aidas, Mimis or Brünnhildes, why couldn't we see a Bess or Clara of those same ethnicities, beyond singing Summertime in a concert, if they have the voice and to do? What if they get the wording and musical styles? Could the experiences of Porgy and Bess not also happen, to  Romani, Balcanic, Indian, Bangladeshi communities, or in the South-American shanty towns or favelas, or in the neighborhoods, almost ghettos, of immigrants of every ethnicity in the outskirts of big cities such as Paris, Brussels, Berlin or London? What if as a result of this questions, the Gershwin estate's restriction has become outdated? This music is so wonderful, so powerful, that one can understand why, even based on an absurd racist argument, the Budapest Opera wanted to incorporate this work into its repertoire without many years passing between productions. Perhaps although it may seem easy to reach a definitive conclusion, the charm of this score could make it more difficult when stopping to think.

Here you can watch free video of a 37-minute selection in Vkontakte.

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