One of America’s all-time favorite operas hits the big screen at  Lincoln Theater, Saturday, Feb. 1 at 1 p.m. “Porgy and Bess” transports audiences to Catfish Row on the Charleston waterfront, vibrant with the music, dancing, emotion, and heartbreak of its inhabitants.

“If you’re going to stage Gershwin’s opera, this is how,” raved the Guardian when the new production premiered in London in 2018. And now, on Feb. 1, this incredible production comes straight to audiences from The Metropolitan Opera, broadcast around the world Live in HD. James Robinson directs and David Robertson conducts, a dynamic cast. In this story of unshakeable love, Eric Owens, who has been performing at the Met since his debut in “Doctor Atomic” in 2008, portrays disabled beggar Porgy. Angel Blue, who was seen previously as Mimi in the Met’s 2017 production of “La Bohème,” portrays Bess, a beautiful woman haunted by the demons of her past.

“Porgy and Bess” is set in slightly fictionalized versions of real places in and around Charleston, South Carolina. Catfish Row, a tenement neighborhood in the 1920s, is a sea-side version of the actual Cabbage Row, a group of old mansions historically inhabited by the descendants of freed slaves. The tight-knit African-American community of Catfish Row is shocked when Crown, Bess’ brutal, violent lover, commits murder during a craps game. Left with no one, among people who look down on her, Bess is taken in by the kind Porgy. As their love grows, Bess seems finally free from her past as the two hope to spend a long, happy life together, but when Crown returns, Porgy and Bess’ relationship is put in peril as Crown seeks to exert his control over her once more.

Written by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin, the overall combination of music, word, and idea among a complex blend of Americana make this a unique and impressive work both within and beyond the operatic repertory. Much of the work’s dynamism comes from Gershwin’s explorations of the Gullah music of Tidewater Carolina, melded with his mastery of jazz and Eastern European Jewish roots to create a personal, idiomatic, brilliant, and thoroughly convincing musical canvas.

Lincoln Theater is at 2 Theater St. in Damariscotta. Tickets on sale at the door only: $25 adult, $23 member, and $5 youth 18 and under.

Dr. Morton Achter will provide a pre-opera talk at 11:45 a.m. on “Porgy and Bess” as arguably the most famous American opera of all time; its checkered reception and sometimes difficult performance history.