“On My Way”: The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and

by Joseph Horowitz

A revelatory history of the operatic masterpiece that both made and destroyed Rouben Mamoulian, its director and unsung hero. "Bring my goat!" Porgy exclaims in the final scene of Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess . Bess, whom he loves, has left for New York City, and he’s determined to find her. When his request is met with astonishment―New York is a great distance from South Carolina’s Catfish Row―Porgy remains undaunted. He mounts his goat-cart and leads the community in an ecstatic finale, "Oh Lawd, I’m on my way." Stephen Sondheim has called "Bring my goat!" "one of the most moving moments in musical theater history." For years it was assumed that DuBose Heyward―the author of the seminal novella and subsequent play, Porgy , and later the librettist for the opera Porgy and Bess ―penned this historic line. In fact, both it and "Oh Lawd, I'm on my way" were added to the play eight years earlier by that production’s unheralded architect: Rouben Mamoulian. Porgy and Bess as we know it would not exist without the contributions of this master director. Culling new information from the recently opened Mamoulian Archives at the Library of Congress, award-winning author Joseph Horowitz shows that, more than anyone else, Mamoulian took Heyward's vignette of a regional African-American subculture and transformed it into an epic theater work, a universal parable of suffering and redemption. Part biography, part revelatory history, " On My Way " re-creates Mamoulian's visionary style on stage and screen, his collaboration with George Gershwin, and the genesis of the opera that changed the face of American musical life. 10 illustrations

Genres: Music, Biography

304 pages, Hardcover

First published July 29, 2013

About the author

Joseph Horowitz is an American cultural historian whose seven books mainly deal with the institutional history of classical music in the United States. As a producer of concerts, he has played a pioneering role in promoting thematic programming and new concert formats.

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Bring My Goat"!

At the conclusion of George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess", Porgy learns that his beloved Bess has gone to New York City with Sporting Life. Porgy rises heroically to the occasion. "Bring my goat"!, he cries, and begins the long 1000 mile trek to New York as he leads the chorus in singing "I'm on my way". Joseph Horowitz discusses the origins of this grand moment in American theater and of much else in Gershwin's opera in his new book, "On My Way: the Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess". (2013) Horowitz is a music critic and artistic advisor who has written ten previous books on American music.

In addition to telling the story of the creation of "Porgy and Bess", Horowitz discusses what he calls "cultural fluidity" in American art. Horowitz argues that American art music was long dominated by European models and not by an indigenous musical tradition. When the composer Antonin Dvorak visited the United States in the late 19th Century, he predicted that an indigenous American music would develop from the music of African-Americans. While the American musical establishment continued in awe of Europe and developed a "performance" culture based on European masterworks, the composers Charles Ives and George Gershwin set out to develop a uniquely American art form separate from European models. In Gershwin's case, this art from involved "cultural fluidity" be its attempt to appeal to a broad audience and to find commonality between classical and popular art.

The theme of "cultural fluidity" pervades Horowitz' study as he offers a biographical portrait of Rouben Mamoulian (1897 -- 1987). In 1927, Mamoulian directed the Broadway production of "Porgy" by Dubose and Dorothy Heyward, based on the earlier novel of the same name. In 1935, Mamoulian directed the first production of "Porgy and Bess" written to a libretto by Dubose Heyward. Horowitz examines the novel, the play, and the opera to show the large extent of Mamoulian's contributions. He makes use of a Library of Congress collection of Mamoulian's papers that was only opened to the public in 2009.

Horowitz shows that Mamoulian played a critical role. The novel began as a nostalgic, allegedly realistic story of poor African Americans in a decrepit housing unit, Catfish Row, in Charleston, South Carolina. In the play and even more so in the opera, Mamoulian changed the local character of Heyward's story to a fable of love and redemption with universal meaning. The line "Bring my Goat!" does not appear in Heyward but was added to the play and opera by Mamoulian, together with Porgy's determination to find Bess in New York. Mamoulian made many other additions, including a "Symphony of Noise" characterizing the sounds of the African-American community of Charleston at the beginning of Act 3 of the play and the opera.

The book offers a biography of Mamoulian and his early training in Russia and Paris. He immigrated to the United States to direct opera and theater in Rochester, New York, before landing a job on Broadway to direct "Porgy". Horowitz finds that Mamoulian created a highly centralized, "stylized" approach to directing, in which he was in control of every detail of the work. Mamoulian relied on large gestures, music, and rhythm to project a work, more than he did on individual dialogue. Horowitz offers a detailed discussion of Mamoulian's contributions to "Porgy" and to "Porgy and Bess". Horowitz also discusses in detail what he considers Mamoulian's third masterwork: the 1932 musical "Love me Tonight" starring Maurice Chevalier with music by Rogers and Hart. Mamoulian subsequently directed the Broadway productions of "Oklahoma" and "Carousel", but Horowitz pays less attention to them. He describes the catastrophes that plagued Mamoulian's late career. Samuel Goldwyn fired Mamoulian from directing the movie version of "Porgy and Bess" and he resigned amidst controversy as the director of "Cleopatra", effectively ending his career.

Horowitz sees much in common between Mamoulian and Gershwin. The director was an immigrant while the composer was the son of immigrants. Both used their immigrant status to develop a vision of American culture and "cultural fluidity" that eluded many native born artists and critics. Horowitz traces the rehabilitation of Gershwin's reputation in works such as "Rhapsody in Blue" and the "Piano Concerto in F" in addition to "Porgy and Bess". During his lifetime, many "highbrow" critics patronized Gershwin and his opera. Horowitz argues eloquently that "Porgy and Bess" is the United States' undisputed masterwork in the form of an American native theater.

The book is engagingly written although it is repetitive in places and departs from chronological sequence. The book is written for a broad audience with its reflections on the nature of American music. The content of the book, however, will most interest readers with a strong interest in American theater and a familiarity and love for Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess". The discussions of Mamoulian and his approach to directing opera, theater, and film is valuable and insightful but may prove daunting to casual readers. The appendixes to the book include the texts of the ending of the novel "Porgy" the play, and the opera "Porgy and Bess" to make clear the differences and Mamoulian's role, together with Mamoulian's stage directions for the "symphony of noises" and a synopsis of the story of "Porgy and Bess".

Robin Friedman

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

It will come as no surprise that the moment I saw that Joseph Horowitz's On my way": the untold story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess" was available on BARD, I began to read it. What is surprising, however, is that I can only give it a guarded recommendation.

As the title indicates, the book traces "Porgy and Bess" through its various incarnations and shows how Gershwin, director Rouben Mamoulian and others helped to transform "Porgy and Bess" into the timeless musical experience we know today.

I must tell you that I am much less familiar with "Porgy and Bess" than with many other musicals. I only recall seeing one production of it and that was back in the late 1970's. (I wanted very much to see the revival (or maybe I should say revisal) with Audra McDonald and Norm Louis, but that was not meant to be.) That lack of familiarity definitely made this book a bit of a challenge since the author assumes that the reader has more immediate knowledge of the work than I do. With that said, it was fascinating to hear about all of the decisions which shaped Gershwin's masterpiece. I was also thrilled to learn more about director Rouben Mamoulian. I have heard his name for years since he also directed "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel"; yet I know next to nothing about him. Like many people, I'm not all that clear on exactly what the role of the director is and so I tend to minimize their impact. This book allowed me to understand a bit more about just how important that role actually is in the shaping of the final production.

With that said, my reaction to Horowitz's book is definitely not all positive. Upon finishing it, I looked on GoodReads to see what others thought. One reviewer, Vinton Rafe, commented "thorough, yet curiously uninvolving." My sentiments exactly. I can't figure out why, but the author simply did not captivate me. He wrote about a subject I find fascinating and he clearly did his homework. Even so, my mind kept wandering and I kept having to go back a bit to see what I missed. Were it not for the fact that I care so much about the Broadway musical and the people who influenced it, I'm sure I would not have finished this book.

Ray Hagen did a stellar job with his narration. It's sometimes easy to forget how much of a difference a narrator can make, especially when reading nonfiction. He is very careful about his phrasing and that made the book much more readable.

Will I return to it in the future? If I have the opportunity to see "Porgy and Bess," I may very well read it again, or at least refer back to it so that I can deepen my understanding of this classic Gershwin work. IF you have a strong interest in the subject, this book is well worth your time; if not, I would advise you to find other books to satisfy your curiosity about this subject.

[Russell Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

“On My Way”: the Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess” is a curious book. Written by Joseph Horowitz, a music critic, it leans heavily on the story of the original director of Porgy and Bess, using copious research. Horowitz even admits at the beginning of the book that he first saw the opera in 1965—thirty years after it premiered—and didn’t fully appreciate it until he saw it again in 2005. So, obviously, everything he says, his vivid descriptions of Mamoulian’s stagings of both the source play Porgy and the opera Porgy and Bess are from research. This is not to say that other authors haven’t faced this dilemma before, that is, describing something they never saw. But trying to recreate a performance that happened almost a century ago and is not available on film is a tremendous task. I, personally, am a theater person first, a musician second, so I would have liked Horowitz to have dwelt more on Mamoulian’s history as a director and his techniques. He does just that, but we also get a lot of critique of the music, as well. I suppose the subtitle warns us of this. Horowitz is centering his book, according to the subtitle, on the combination of Mamoulian, Gershwin, and Porgy and Bess. But—and I realize one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover—the dust jacket features a giant head of Rouben Mamoulian, giving the impression that the book will be more about him than either Gershwin or Porgy and Bess. It is about Mamoulian primarily, but I would have liked to have heard more about Mamoulian’s stagings of Oklahoma!, Carousel, and other history-making musicals. Still, it is fascinating to see the tale of a man who was a creative genius and who let that genius destroy him, for his career ended much too soon simply because he became difficult to work with and oppositional to powerful producers, particularly Samuel Goldwyn. The chapter about the movie version of Porgy and Bess is enlightening indeed. I guess I have mixed feelings about this book. Perhaps I wanted a breezy theatrical biography. What I got was an almost academic critique of an American opera, its creators, and the stormy director who led the production.

[Vinton Rafe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thorough, yet curiously uninvolving.