The 2011 refundición of Porgy and Bess caused a major stir when heirs to the estates of George and Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward (lyrics) requested a Broadway-style adaptation of the trio's original four-hour opera. The production team hired by the estates (comprising diane paulus, director; Suzan-lori parks, playwright; and Diedre L. Murray, composer) began to cut. Recitative became dialogue, major arias were eliminated, and the title was changed to The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. Soprano Audra Mcdonald, Bess in the production, defended the changes, stating “I imagine Gershwin purists will have their arrows in their bows, ready to shoot” (Healy). And she was right. In an open letter to the New York Times, composer Stephen Sondheim openly criticized the “wholesale rewriting” of the work, and expressed concern for the “legacy” of the original. “In the interest of truth in advertising,” he wrote, “let it not be called The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, nor even The Gershwin–Heyward Porgy and Bess. Advertise it honestly as Diane Paulus's Porgy and Bess. And to the hell with the real one” (Sondheim).

The comments by Mcdonald and Sondheim highlight opposing approaches to contemporary stagings of previously performed works. While Sondheim argues for the singularity of a given work that is “the real one,” Mcdonald advocates for its adaptability: “The opera will always exist to be performed. What we wanted to do was a new conception that tries to deal with the holes and issues in the story that would be very, very obvious to a musical-theater audience” (Healy).