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Yesterday’s live opera broadcast was a Los Angeles Opera production of Porgy and Bess. In the pre-show comments, the director of the production said something to the effect that she thought that Porgy was on par with anything by Strauss, Shostakovich or Prokofiev, and was “the best opera of the 20th Century”. I don’t remember if she qualified that statement with the word “American”. If not, I just have to assume that she said this because she is among the legion of opera directors today who know very little about music.

Porgy is an important American work, but to compare it to War and Peace or Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is hardly fair, and to put it in the same league as Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Salome, Elektra, or even Arabella is laughable. On his best day, Gershwin never came close to Strauss.

As far as Porgy being the “best opera of the 20th Century”, here’s a short list (in no particular order) of works I think are superior:

1. Bluebeard’s Castle
2. Lulu
3. The Rake’s Progress
4. Moses und Aron
5. Wozzeck

Now, add to that very selective list any of the 20th Century operas by Puccini, which include La fanciulla del West, Madama Butterfly and Turandot; most of Britten’s operas, including Billy Budd, or his masterpiece, Peter Grimes; most of Janacek, including Jenufa, and Káta Kabanová; and, in my mind, one of the greatest of all operas of any period, Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande.

The New York Times today clearly lays out the deficiencies of America’s health care system in an editorial.  It points out where we’re good and where we’re not.  Unfortunately, where we’re not is quite a few important areas, and, considering our prosperity as a nation, a scandal.