• George Gershwin. Folk opera in three acts. 1935.
• Libretto by DuBose Heyward, with lyrics by Heyward and Ira Gershwin, based on Heyward's novel Porgy.
• First performance at the Alvin Theatre, New York, on 10th October 1935.

In a tenement on Catfish Row Clara sings a lullaby to her baby, while elsewhere there is a crap game. The cripple Porgy is teased about his affection for Bess, who comes in with her drunken man, Crown, with whom violence breaks out. Crown, drunk and having lost in the game, kills Robbins, and is given money by Bess to make his escape, while she eventually finds shelter with Porgy. There is a wake for Robbins, with Peter seized by the police as a witness. A month later the fishermen prepare to put to sea, while Frazier arranges a 'legal' divorce for Bess from Crown. She repulses Sportin' Life, who continues to press her to go away with him. At a picnic on Kittiwah Island from which Porgy is excluded, Crown re-appears and claims Bess again. A storm drowns the fisherman Jake, with, it seems, Clara, and Crown, who had gone to their help. Crown returns and is murdered by Porgy, although his guilt is not detected. While he is held as a witness, Sportin' Life gives Bess some dope, and when Porgy returns, Bess has gone away with him, now followed by Porgy.

Gershwin's opera has a particular importance of its own, set, as it is, in black America. Clara's lullaby Summertime, repeated by Bess, when she looks after Clara's baby, is among the best known songs from the opera. Other well known songs include Jake's A woman is a sometime thing, Serena's lament for Robbins My man's gone now, and Bess's wake spiritual Headin' for the Promise' Land. The second act brings Porgy's Banjo Song Oh I got plenty o'nuttin and his duet with Bess, Bess, you is my woman now. At the picnic Sportin’ Life sings It ain't necessarily so, while Porgy expresses his final determination to follow Bess in Oh, Lord, I'm on my way. The symphonic suite Catfish Row was derived from the opera.