Customer Rating: 
Summary: A LONG AWAITED HISTORICAL ISSUE!!!
Comment: This is a wonderful historical document of a famous revival of the great George Gershwin's PORGY AND BESS. It is a very good sounding performance of a famous production that toured the world for three years in the early 1950's featuring a very young Leontyne Price and a fine William Warfield. The sound is very good Mono Radio Broadcast. Now, for purists this is not a note complete studio recording; but, a working live performance edition. This is how the work was performed at this time, in this famous tour. The original opera was about four hours long and we will never know what changes or final thoughts the composer may have had as this score went through various productions. It was considered a bit too long and death took another true genius composer way too soon. The original clocked in at a little over four hours. Shades of Wagner and THE RING! Gershwin should have been alive and well when this production hit the roads and had considerable input.
Oh well, lets leave this and get to the performance at hand. It in many ways is excellent and very important. It introduces us to a very young and beautiful sounding Leontyne Price seven years before her famous Metropolitan Opera debut. A great voice and artist is heard in the very beginning of a phenomenal career. This role practically introduced her to the world and was an important triumph! The aria "Summertime" was always one of many encores in all her live recitals. I personally heard her sing this at least four times over her four decades career. It was always stunning with the most pure floated piano tones one will ever have the privilege to experience! Her highlights on RCA are also Spectacular! If you love or like this opera or are an unabashed fan of Leontyne Price, and I am, here is a rare chance to hear her in 1952 in a very important door opening role which she never recorded complete in the Studio. Don't pass this chance by. We have Guild Historical to thank for this special treat.
Now, not to slight the rest of the cast we also get Excellent performances from William Warfield and Cab Calloway. Again historic in the best sense of the word. The other female roles are everything from adequate to very good; some a bit shrill. We also get a lot of involvement this being a live performance. Finally, not an absolutely complete performance of this Masterpiece but, a very good sounding historic document of an important revival with some important career breakthroughs. Again, thank you GUILD HISTORICAL!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Gershwin light
Comment: Regardless of the claims being made, this does not even come close to being the complete opera. Nevertheless, it is an important document of the times, as Alexander Smallens conducts and the Eva Jessye choir perform. Of course, both Smallens and Jessye were involved in the opera's premiere, and there are many touches that strike me as deeply idiomatic, although so many cuts are made I cannot recommend this version. So much of the lovely recitative is missing, and Buzzzard Song is interpolated in the final scene, which makes little dramatic sense. Recommended only for the Gershwin scholar who has the Rattle or Maazel versions, both of which are complete. The sound is acceptable mono, although it is difficult to hear the orchestra over the singers.
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