Word: besse
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...Paul Haakon's very impressive modern terpsichore, and including the talented toes of Eleanor Powell and the powerful dusky notes of Ethel Waters. "Jubilee," another Boston opener, is on the grand scale with a nicely turned bit of satire and Mary Boland leading a well rounded cast. "Porgy and Bess," with George Gershwin's excellent score is a modern operatic version of Heyward's striking negro story and a good thing for the more serious. Earl Carroll's "Sketch Book" appeals in Carroll fashion to the more elemental instincts...
...best examples of its sort yet screened. Its story varies from pattern in that the hero triumphs on the stage, not of the Metropolitan in Manhattan but of a rival company in Philadelphia. Furthermore, Metropolitan has a string of less negative qualities to recommend it. Its screen play, by Bess Meredyth and George Marion Jr., is unfailingly light-hearted and literate. Its score, though a potpourri of operatic and concert-stage favorites, is well chosen. Its cast includes Alice Brady, Virginia Bruce and Luis Alberni. Its star is Lawrence Tibbett, whose baritone voice is still the best vocal instrument...
...hidebound opera company could have done justice to Porgy and Bess. Few conventionally trained singers would have been plausible in its roles. Few operatic directors could have mastered its theatre. The Guild was determined, at all costs, to make the opera live. Rouben Mamoulian, who directed the original play, was summoned from Hollywood. Negroes were assembled who knew no stuffy traditions, had true feeling for rhythm. Mamoulian's hand was particularly evident in the big mass groupings, in the way he kept the action in pace with the music. The Negroes in prayer suggested an entire down-trodden race...
...blacks in the cast proved perfect actors. Crown is strapping Warren Coleman. Flashy, irrepressible Sportin' Life is John W. Bubbles of the dance team. Buck & Bubbles. Bess is Anne Wiggins Brown, daughter of a Baltimore physician, who learned to sing at the Juilliard School of Music. Todd Duncan, a rich-voiced baritone who heads the music department at Howard University, plays Porgy in such a way as to suggest that some day he might be a candidate for grand opera...
Porgy and Bess is not "grand," is not intended for the musical few. Critics agreed that Composer Gershwin's chorus and orchestration mark a notable advance in his development. Laymen left his folk opera humming with satisfaction...