Blue Monday (opera) - Characters

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."

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