Show Synopsis:
Clara and and Jake can?t seem to get their baby to sleep in their small fisherman community in Catfish Row. Porgy, a disabled beggar, comes to organize a craps game for the men, and defends the pimp Crown?s girl Bess when other women suggest that she is not as good as they are because she sleeps with Crown without being married to him. Crown drunkenly protests losing at craps and kills his partner Robbins, so Crown runs away. Porgy takes Bess in, as she has nowhere else to go. Robbins?s wife Serena rejects Bess?s contribution to burial costs in front of the entire community. The police come and arrest Peter of murdering Robbins, although he tells them Crown did it, and Serena makes a deal with the undertaker to pay him for the burial later. Bess mourns Robbins with a song, and the other women join in with her. A month later, Jake leaves Clara to work on a fishing boat although she is afraid of summer storms, and a man pretending to be a lawyer convinces Bess to sign divorce papers and asks her for money, even though she was never actually married to Crown. As the people of Catfish Row prepare to go on a church picnic, Porgy and Bess declare their love for each other. The women persuade Bess to go on the church picnic although Porgy?s disability makes it impossible for him to be in the boat. After the picnic, the boats begin to go back to Catfish Row, but Crown ambushes Bess, as he believes she can only love him, and he rapes her. A week later, Bess is ill and Peter has returned from jail. Bess tells Porgy he loves him despite what happened with Crown, and he vows to protect her. Everyone gathers in Serena?s house to wait out a hurricane and Crown returns during the storm, claiming that he is a good Christian man. Clara sees her husband?s boat float by upside-down and goes to search for him, and Crown goes with her to prove his goodness. The next day, Catfish Row mourns Clara, Jake, Crown, and the fisherman who all disappeared in the storm. Bess takes charge of Clara?s baby, but when Crown sneaks back to force himself on Violet, Porgy kills him. Porgy is put in jail, and Sportin? Life the dealer forces former addict Bess to breathe in his happy dust. When she comes down off of her hallucinations of being with Sportin? Life in New York City, Bess goes back to her house and he leaves her happy dust on her doorstep. Porgy is released a week later with a small fortune from beating all the other inmates at craps. He learns that Bess and Sportin? Life have run off to New York City, and he sets off there too, determined to find her.

Character: 
Serena, a poor African-American woman who loves Robbins; living by the skin of her teeth; not ready to let people push her around.

Song Context: 
At her husband?s funeral, Serena mourns his death when Crown kills him over a lost game of craps. She does not know how she?s going to pay the undertaker, or go on with her life.

Fun Facts: 
1. This opera was based on DuBose Heyward?s novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same name. Heyward also co-wrote the libretto of the opera. 
2. The role of Serena was created by Ruby Elzy, one of the most popular singers of her generation. She played the role over 800 times before her death at the age of 35. 
3. This song was covered by many popular singers after it debuted in the Broadway show, including Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Shirley Horn.