More seditious comments from Duke. . . .
Hard to tell if he REALLY felt that way, or if it behooved him to say so. And he's probably right, from his viewpoint as a composer and a chronicler of "my people." And P and B may have been far less a success if it were more as Duke would have had it.
I personally feel that the opera is a masterwork, I like it in its original form very much. But then again, I have a TOTALLY different background and viewpoint from Duke! And. . . my dad instilled a reverence for Gershwin in me by osmosis that I didn't even really realize I had for a long time.