Summertime Technique

Music

“Summertime” anchors George Gershwin’s folk opera Porgy and Bess, a work believed by many to be his most important. Gershwin started out as a “song-plugger” on Tin Pan Alley—he demoed...

Setting

The first song within George Gershwin and Heyward DuBose’s Porgy and Bess, ”Summertime” is set among the poor black inhabitants of Charleston, South Carolina. The opera’s controversial plot...