The Best Thing I Read This Week

“Hungarian Opera Asks White Cast of ‘Porgy and Bess’ to Say They Are African-American”

Call it Click Bait if you want, but there is no way you are not reading that article. When you do, you realize it’s not Click Bait at all, it’s simply an honest summary of the events. The Opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ is “a story of an African-American community’s struggle with violence, and Racism”, and has been played by an African-American cast since it’s origin in 1935. Last year the show was cast to white actors by Hungarian State Opera’s general director, Szilveszter Okovacs.

Okovacs had his cast sign a letter stating they identified with “African American Origins, and spirit”. The unusual letter was crafted and signed in response to strong criticism from the estate of the original writer of the Opera, George Gershwin, who claims that when Okovacs obtained the rights to the opera,  he agreed “in writing” to cast African-American singers in the opera.

Bulk of the article after the initial description of events displays different accounts of how the licensing agreement read, and what it may, or may not have implied. One Woman from an English Opera company stated that in the agreement she signed for the rights to the Opera, it didn’t explicitly say “the signers had to be black but in effect you cannot have white signers playing the main roles”. Not having access to the agreement itself, the writer articulates the different accounts and claims made by both Okovas and the Gershwin estate.

Along with letting each side of the dispute give their account, the writer pulls in outside details, such as nothing that much of the cast claimed to have rehearsed with photocopied music scores (original scores would have most likely been provided if the rights were obtained fully), as well as mentioning that when the show opened a disclaimer was made on the play bills and posters stating that the production was “contrary to the requirements for the presentation of the work”. Although Okovas claims he had full rights to the production, despite what the Gershwin estate says, details like these seem to implicate him further.