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Restored Edition Of 'Porgy And Bess' Readying For Met Opera

The Met Opera Stage
The Metropolitan Opera

A restored edition of a pioneering, enduring American opera put through its paces in Michigan is making its official debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

"The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess" is set to premiere Sept. 23.

The staging of the "performance edition" is the culmination of a long-in-the-works project by University of Michigan's Gershwin Initiative.

The work with edited and corrected notes and other elements received a test drive last year on the Ann Arbor campus.

Organizers say feedback from that performance helped develop a definitive score.

University musicologist Mark Clague says in a release the initiative, a partnership with the Gershwin families, ensures George and Ira Gershwin's works can "be heard as the brothers imagined."

"Porgy" is by the Gershwins, as well as DuBose and Dorothy Heyward.

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