Brown Bess weighed 10 pounds was 60 inches long with a 42- or 46-inch smooth bore barrel and a walnut stock. Soldiers generally carried nine to 12 rounds in a belly cartridge box.

For audiences in 1935, Brown must have seemed to own the role of Bess. At a time when there were precious few classically trained Black singers, this newcomer was a revelation.

Gershwin died in 1937, with Brown still in the role of Bess. "Anne Brown was a pioneer for blacks in the opera," said Nina Krohn, a music critic for Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.

A look at the Revolutionary War era Brown Bess musket and it's role in the Battle of Great Bridge. It's now kept in the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Museum.

Ms. Brown was the first person Gershwin heard singing the part of Bess, a morally challenged but achingly human character who was relatively minor in the original 1925 DuBose Heyward novel and the ...