Characters
- Roles
- Joe, a gambler, tenor
- Vi, his sweetheart, lyric soprano
- Tom, café entertainer and singer, baritone
- Mike, café proprietor and manager, bass
- Sam, café worker and custodian, baritone
- Sweetpea, café pianist
- Chorus
- Guests
As in Gershwin's later opera Porgy and Bess, all the singing roles are African-American characters. Unlike Porgy and Bess, however, the original production of Blue Monday was performed by white singers in blackface, since, according to conductor Erich Kunzel, "there were no black people on Broadway during that period."
Read more about this topic: Blue Monday (opera)
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“His leanings were strictly lyrical, descriptions of nature and emotions came to him with surprising facility, but on the other hand he had a lot of trouble with routine items, such as, for instance, the opening and closing of doors, or shaking hands when there were numerous characters in a room, and one person or two persons saluted many people.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Children pay little attention to their parent’s teachings, but reproduce their characters faithfully.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that’s basically a conservative view of life.”
—Jane Smiley (b. 1949)