New
York & Porgy and Bess |
In June 1930, Dr. McCracken secured a Rosenwald Fellowship,
an award for black artists, for Ruby Elzy. Another recent
recipient, the young Marian Anderson, had used the funding
for a year’s study in Germany. But McCracken thought
young Ruby was not yet ready for Europe. Instead, she
auditioned and was accepted at The Juilliard School
of Music in New York City that October.
 Ruby
lived in Harlem at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.
She paid her living expenses with a job in the J. Rosamond
Johnson Choir for $25 a week, quite a lot at the time.
She made her Broadway debut October 7, 1930, in the
all-black musical comedy, Brown Buddies, starring Bill
“Bojangles” Robinson.
The summer
after her first year at Juilliard, Ruby Elzy fell in
love. She married Gardner Jones, Jr. the following September.
That same month, Ruby got her first solo on Broadway,
singing “Where’s My Happy Ending?”
in the revue, Fast and Furious. Though the
show – and the marriage – didn’t have
happy endings (lasting seven performances and five years,
respectively), Ruby was one of the only Rosenwald Fellows
to have her funding renewed for a second year.
 J.
Rosamond Johnson became a crucial part of Ruby’s
musical life. With him, Ruby made her first network
radio appearance on the NBC program, Parade of the
States, in 1932. In June 1933, Johnson hired Elzy
as a choral assistant for the United Artists film version
of The Emperor Jones, starring Paul Robeson,
filmed on Long Island. Before long, screenwriter DuBose
Heyward singled Ruby Elzy out to play the role of Jones’
girlfriend. Though the film did poorly at the box office,
in 1999 The Emperor Jones was named by the
Library of Congress to the National Film Registry, an
honor reserved for “culturally, historically,
or esthetically significant” films.
In June 1934,
Ruby received her graduate diploma in voice and the
coveted Certificate of Maturity from the Juilliard School.
That same year, DuBose Heyward recommended Ruby to George
Gershwin, who was writing an opera based on Heyward’s
novel, Porgy. Elzy sang for Gershwin at his
Riverside Drive penthouse, and he cast her immediately
as Serena, the opera’s second female lead.
July 19,
1935, Ruby sang Serena’s aria, “My Man’s
Gone Now,” in a recorded rehearsal at CBS studios,
conducted by George Gershwin. September 30, Porgy
and Bess had its world premiere in Boston, and
it opened in New York on October 10. Critics unanimously
singled Ruby Elzy out for acclaim as Serena. Marcia
Davenport of Stage magazine calls Ruby’s
solo “forbiddingly difficult,” but “The
singer has it. She distills heartbreak from this extraordinary
piece of music…Miss Elzy is a notable artist.”
Drama critic Ruth Woodbury Sedgwick said “Before
Ruby Elzy, however, one pauses with awe…Always
exactly right, at times her acting takes on real stature.”
Cynthia Clarey,
the best known Serena of recent years, recalls her three
months playing the role in the acclaimed Trevor Nunn
production at London's Glyndebourne Festival in 1988:
“We gave eighteen performances of Porgy and
Bess over a fifty-four day period. I had three days
of rest between each performance, and believe me, I
needed it! Serena’s music is so difficult to sing,
and when you have to act the role too, it’s overwhelming”
(p. 190). But Ruby Elzy sang eight shows a week for
a full run of 124 performances in New York, while also
becoming a regular in the cast of the NBC radio series,
The Melody Master. She co-starred with Jack
Norworth, the actor she had attempted to see in Columbus
with the McCrackens, but had been denied entry due to
her race.
After success
in New York, Porgy and Bess went on tour, making
its final stop at Washington D.C.’s National Theatre,
which had a policy of segregated seating. At the insistence
and petition of the cast, led by Ruby's friend, Anne
Brown (who played Bess), audiences were integrated for
the first time. For all eight Porgy and Bess
performances, blacks could sit wherever they wanted.
 In
July 1936, Ruby performed with other members of Porgy
and Bess in an all-Gershwin concert with the New
York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium
in New York. She sang an especially meaningful “My
Man’s Gone Now,” having separated from Gardner
Jones a month earlier. Their marriage ended in divorce.
Ruby then disappeared from view for a few months, broken
hearted and worn down from touring. But singing and
the stage called her back soon enough.
Concurrent
Noteworthy Events
1931
- “The
Star Spangled Banner” is chosen for the national
anthem.
William
Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony”
is performed for the first time
- The Empire State Building is completed in New York
City.
1935
- This year marks the end of the Harlem Renaissance.
- As a student at Ohio State, black track star Jesse
Owens breaks [JesseOwensOSU] three world records and
ties another at the Big Ten Conference Championships
in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1936
- At the Summer Olympics in Germany, also known as the
“Nazi Olympics,” Jesse Owens wins four gold
medals, setting Olympic records in all but one.
- “Script
Ohio” is performed by the Ohio State University
marching band for the first time, under the direction
of Eugene Weigel.
1937
Black author Zora Neale Hurston publishes her famous
novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. |
