The American musical masterpiece Porgy And Bess comes to Eastbourne for two performances

as part of a world tour which given more than 300 performances on five continents.

The changing cast is taken from America's leading opera companies. The show is directed by Will Robertson and Stefan Koziniski conducts a 25-piece orchestra.

George and Ira Gershwin's show is undoubtedly the most popular opera to have come out of the States and its songs have entered the repertoire not just of opera singers but into the canon of the American popular song.

Such unforgettable numbers as Summertime, It Ain't Necessarily So and I Got Plenty of Nuthin' have been performed by such popular singers as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and a host of crooners and jazz singers.

Indeed, some purists won't have it that Porgy And Bess is an opera at all. They believe it is more of a musical and will generally settle for calling it a folk opera. But tell that to Glyndebourne, which had a tremendous hit with the show, selling out within days of announcing it and turning it into the hit of 1986.

The production was slated for the West End and some critics felt it would have been successful there as a major musical but at least three casts would have been needed and the singers just weren't available.

EMI later filmed the production, conducted by Simon Rattle and starring Willard White as Porgy.

The opera comes from the moving story of Porgy and the residents of Charleston's Catfish Row.

It is a tale of overcoming pride and racial prejudice and is full of passion and pathos. Porgy is crippled and Bess is the local hooker. The story takes in a group of loves where poverty, violence, gambling and drugs are the order of the day.

The story started as a novel by Dubose Heywood who then transformed it into a play with his wife Dorothy.

It was the play that was the inspiration for the collaboration between Heywood and the Gershwin brothers who turned the story into a powerful, barrier-breaking opera.

Porgy And Bess is a breakthrough opera because it got the sound of jazz and blues on to major concert stages throughout the world.

It is regarded as one of the finest operas of the 20th Century and a work that paved the way for many others.

When it first opened in 1935, it stunned music and drama critics when it was first heard and it still doing so.

For tickets and information, call 01323 412000.