"Bess, you is my woman" is one of the great love duets in operatic literature.
It has wonderful melodic lines and expresses the deep love between Porgy and
Bess, but also the tragic pall hanging over their relationship and its
inevitable sad ending.

"Porgy And Bess" premiered in New York on October 10, 1935, two years before
Gershwin's death. It was the first American opera, and to this day probably
still the most successful. It created a great tragic love story among black
Americans, drawing heavily on musical experience of that community without
just being a "folk opera". Gershwin was very much a composer of his time (he
knew Sch”nberg personally). While he used the jazz idiom to contextualise
the drama, his harmonies and rhythms transcend blues chords by far.

Michael Bednarek <mb@mbednarek.com>
http://mbednarek.com/