In Harmony with History

Ryan McKittrick: What made you want to work on this project as the musical adapter?

Diedre Murray: Listening to Porgy and Bess is like being in church all day with the most beautiful music ever written. Each day of this project has been like that for me. I think Gershwin wrote Porgy and Bess as a kind of valentine to black people. Here was a Jewish guy in the 1930s who was saying, “Check this out: they have great loves, great desires, great passions, and you’re going to listen. And it’s going to be sublime.” But he was also on the outside of the African-American experience. So I believe I can offer an insider’s look at some of the same information. My father came from a small fishing village on the eastern shore of Virginia, so I can relate to those characters, those people.

Could you describe your process?

I spent of a lot of time studying Gershwin’s tastes. When you’re arranging you have to be able to think like that person. So I studied anything I could find that may have influenced him. I listened to other operas and classical music. And then I started listening to as many recordings and covers of Porgy and Bess as I could find. I noticed that there were a lot made in the 1960s—it was as if all those great jazz musicians suddenly discovered Porgy and Bess thirty years after it had premiered. Porgy and Bess is classical music, but in many ways it looks like a jazz score. There’s music in there that foreshadows McCoy Tyner and Thelonious Monk.

Porgy and Bess premiered in a Broadway house in 1935, but it’s also been staged in opera houses. Gershwin called it an “American folk opera.” How would you describe Porgy and Bess?

It’s a hybrid. There’s such a wide range of influences and sounds in Porgy and Bess. Gershwin used to go up to Harlem to hear jazz, and then he also spent time on the islands in South Carolina. I also think there’s a lot of Puccini and Bizet in there. And Wagnerian flourishes. And ragtime. I even hear R&B and rap. That’s one reason why I’m so attracted to the piece—because I’m also a crossover artist. I’m a composer and cellist with a background in jazz, opera, and classical music. And I think that’s part of what makes Porgy and Bess so modern. Hybrid is where we live now. Everything is hybrid. The world is smaller. Everything is coming closer together.

Could you give some examples of how you’re reworking some of the songs?

At the beginning of the show, Clara is singing “Summertime” to her baby. But when I listened to it, I asked myself, “Why is she singing so high? That would wake the baby up. It has to be a lullaby.” So I took the whole thing down. And then I decided that I wanted to use an accordion, because whenever I hear an accordion it always transports me someplace else—a folkloric place that doesn’t have machines. So the show now opens with Clara singing “Summertime” as a duet with the accordion. And then it opens up into those luscious melodies with the strings. I also put the “Doctor Jesus” music into a form modern African-Americans and others would recognize from a real church today. In some songs I made the blues elements more manifest. In others I emphasized the swing elements. And I changed some of the harmonic structures inside of the pieces to make them more modern. Of course my own voice sneaks in through my choices, but I ultimately have tremendous respect for Gershwin, because the music is timeless and sublime.

What makes it sublime?

Gershwin knew how to write a great tune. A lot of composers today are afraid of melody. They’re afraid of sentimentality. You can’t be afraid to simply say “I love you, I need you” through music. “I Loves You Porgy,” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” and “Summertime”—you can’t get any better than that. I sit and look at the score and I’m just in awe of how great it is. It is just visionary.

Ryan McKittrick is the A.R.T.’s Dramaturg and co-head of the Dramaturgy Department of the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.