Porgy and Bess

Pretty much everybody has heard the classic hits I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’  and It Ain’t Necessarily So, and, perhaps most famous of all: Summertime. What most people don't realize, however, is that these great songs are not simply old jazz standards. They started life as the most popular parts of one of the most famous American operas: Porgy and Bess®.

Dating from 1935, this work created by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin, presents the lives of the inhabitants of an African-American community in Charleston, South Carolina, in all of its splendor – its joyfulness and reverence, the hard work and, sometimes, its violence – through the love story of a crippled beggar and a drug-addicted woman.

 

The English surtitles use the text from the original work, which is written mostly in the Gullah dialect.

 

“The worldwide copyrights in the music of George and Ira Gershwin® for this presentation are licensed by the Gershwin Family.”

 

Disclaimer of the copyright owners: “The manner in which this production of Porgy and Bess is being produced is unauthorized and is contrary to the requirements for the presentation of the work.”