Susannah
Encyclopedia
Susannah is an opera
in two acts by American composer
Carlisle Floyd
, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University
. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders
, though the latter story has a more positive ending. The story focuses on 18-year-old Susannah Polk, an innocent girl who is targeted as a sinner in the small mountain town of New Hope Valley, in the Southern American state of Tennessee
. Influenced by the Elders and Elders' Wives, traveling preacher Olin Blitch and the town push her away, leading to tragedy. After Susannah refuses to repent at Blitch’s revival meeting, Blitch comes to see Susannah on her property. Though he planned to continue asking her to repent, he ends up pressuring her into sex. Blitch is very remorseful after this and tries to persuade the townspeople to forgive her. They refuse, and Susannah refuses to forgive him. Susannah’s brother Sam returns home, kills Blitch and runs away. The townspeople try to force Susannah to leave, but she points her gun at them and they leave, except for her former friend Little Bat, whom she pretends to try to seduce, but she pushes him away also.
The opera was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award for Best New Opera in 1956 and was chosen to represent American music
and culture
at the World's Fair
at Brussels
in 1958, with a production (by Frank Corsaro
) that featured Phyllis Curtin
and Norman Treigle
. It received its Metropolitan Opera
premiere in 1999, with Renée Fleming
singing the title role, Jerry Hadley
singing Sam and Samuel Ramey
singing Blitch. Ramey also recorded the complete opera with Cheryl Studer
as Susannah and Jerry Hadley
as Sam. Other well-known sopranos who have portrayed the heroine have included Lee Venora
, Joy Clements
, Maralin Niska
, Nancy Shade
, Diana Soviero
, Karan Armstrong
, Kelly Kaduce
and Phyllis Treigle
(opposite Michael Devlin as Blitch).
Susannah is one of the most performed American operas, second to Porgy and Bess
, and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with a performance on the very stage where it premiered February 24, 1955, in Ruby Diamond Auditorium at Florida State University
. At the first performance, Carlisle Floyd
was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Florida State.
It has been speculated that the opera was inspired by McCarthyism
, a period of intense fear of communism in America during the early 1950s. The opera also contains many feminist
themes that had not been widely explored in popular culture at the time of the opera’s writing. Floyd has claimed that this opera, like his other operas, was meant to be different from a traditional opera.
The music is largely characterized by Appalachian folk melodies. Also included are some Protestant hymns and some traditional classical music. A particularly prominent part of the opera is Susannah’s soaring and melancholy aria in Act II, "The Trees on the Mountain", which is similar to Appalachian folk tunes but in fact Floyd's own composition.
The next morning Susannah is innocently bathing naked in the creek near her home; she is discovered by the elders, who are searching for a baptismal stream. They conceal their lust with outrage and tell the community of her wickedness. Susannah arrives at a church dinner that evening and is sent away, much to her confusion. Later, as she is pondering why she has been shunned, Little Bat tells her that the elders have denounced her for bathing in the nude, and admits that he was coerced into saying she seduced him.
Sam informs Susannah that she must make a public confession in order to be absolved. Though she claims she has nothing to confess, she goes to the service where Olin Blitch is preaching. When she is singled out to come forward, she runs away. Once the service has ended, Reverend Blitch goes to Susannah’s house and offers to pray for her soul; upon discovering that her brother is away, Blitch rapes her.
The next day Blitch, having discovered that Susannah was a virgin, comes to her and begs for forgiveness. He throws himself at Susannah’s mercy, but she refuses to forgive him. When Susannah tells Sam the story he threatens to kill Blitch; he leaves for the baptismal service, carrying his shotgun. Convinced that Susannah led her brother to murder, the community heads to her house to drive her out of the valley. However, Little Bat has warned her in advance, and when the vigilantes arrive she is waiting with a shotgun. They retreat, but she has effectively severed her ties with the community and her world.
Deutsche Oper Berlin premiered their production in 1997 with American bass-baritone Dean Petersen in the role of Blitch.
In 2010, with a cast including Latonia Moore as Susannah and James Morris as Blitch, the opera of Bilbao, Spain produced Susannah conducted by John Mauceri with the Robert Falls production premiered in Chicago but also produced at the Metropolitan Opera New York.
The opera's UK premiere was as a community project directed by John La Bouchardiere
at mac (Birmingham)
in 1996. The first fully professional production in the UK was by English Touring Opera
in 2008.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
in two acts by American composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders
Susanna (Book of Daniel)
Susanna or Shoshana included in the Book of Daniel by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, considered apocryphal by Protestants. It is listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England among the books which are included...
, though the latter story has a more positive ending. The story focuses on 18-year-old Susannah Polk, an innocent girl who is targeted as a sinner in the small mountain town of New Hope Valley, in the Southern American state of Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. Influenced by the Elders and Elders' Wives, traveling preacher Olin Blitch and the town push her away, leading to tragedy. After Susannah refuses to repent at Blitch’s revival meeting, Blitch comes to see Susannah on her property. Though he planned to continue asking her to repent, he ends up pressuring her into sex. Blitch is very remorseful after this and tries to persuade the townspeople to forgive her. They refuse, and Susannah refuses to forgive him. Susannah’s brother Sam returns home, kills Blitch and runs away. The townspeople try to force Susannah to leave, but she points her gun at them and they leave, except for her former friend Little Bat, whom she pretends to try to seduce, but she pushes him away also.
The opera was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award for Best New Opera in 1956 and was chosen to represent American music
American music
The music of the Americas is very diverse since, in addition to many types of Native American music, the music of Africa and the music of Europe have been found there for some five centuries, creating many hybrid forms that have influenced the popular music of the world.-See also:*Canadian...
and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
at the World's Fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
at Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
in 1958, with a production (by Frank Corsaro
Frank Corsaro
Frank Corsaro is one of America's foremost stage directors of opera and theatre. His Broadway productions include The Night of the Iguana ....
) that featured Phyllis Curtin
Phyllis Curtin
Phyllis Curtin is an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She was known for her creation of new roles such as the title role in the Carlisle Floyd opera Susannah, Catherine Earnshaw in Floyd's Wuthering Heights, and in...
and Norman Treigle
Norman Treigle
Norman Treigle was an American operatic bass-baritone, who was acclaimed for his great abilities as a singing-actor, and specialized in roles that evoked villainy and terror....
. It received its Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
premiere in 1999, with Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...
singing the title role, Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley was an American operatic tenor. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances in the recordings of Jenůfa , Susannah , and Candide...
singing Sam and Samuel Ramey
Samuel Ramey
Samuel Edward Ramey is an American operatic bass with a long, distinguished career.During his best years, he was greatly admired for his range and versatility, having possessed a sufficiently accomplished bel canto technique to enable him to sing the music of Handel, Mozart, Rossini, yet power...
singing Blitch. Ramey also recorded the complete opera with Cheryl Studer
Cheryl Studer
Cheryl Studer is a Grammy Award winning American dramatic soprano who has sung at many of the world's major opera houses. A singer with unusual versatility, Studer has performed more than eighty roles ranging from the dramatic repertoire to roles more commonly associated with lyric sopranos and...
as Susannah and Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley was an American operatic tenor. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances in the recordings of Jenůfa , Susannah , and Candide...
as Sam. Other well-known sopranos who have portrayed the heroine have included Lee Venora
Lee Venora
Lee Venora is an American operatic soprano and stage actress. She was highly active with the New York City Opera between 1957 and 1967 and was also a regular performer at the San Francisco Opera between 1961 and 1966. She also appeared in a few Broadway musicals, Lincoln Center Revivals, and...
, Joy Clements
Joy Clements
Joy Clements was an American lyric coloratura soprano who had a substantial opera and concert career from 1956 through the late 1970s. She notably sang regularly with both the New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera during the 1960s through the early 1970s...
, Maralin Niska
Maralin Niska
Maralin Niska is an acclaimed operatic soprano, well known as a singing-actress.Born in San Pedro, California, Niska studied under Louise Mansfield, Lotte Lehmann, and primarily Ernest St. John Metz...
, Nancy Shade
Nancy Shade
Nancy Shade is a celebrated spinto soprano, best known as a singing-actress. She made her formal debut as Leonora in Il trovatore, in Louisville, in 1967. In 1971, she made her first of many appearances at the New York City Opera, as Musetta in La bohème...
, Diana Soviero
Diana Soviero
Diana Soviero is an American operatic soprano of international stature, a recipient of the Richard Tucker Award in 1979....
, Karan Armstrong
Karan Armstrong
Karan Armstrong is an American operatic soprano who has had an active international career since the 1960s.-Biography:...
, Kelly Kaduce
Kelly Kaduce
Kelly Kaduce is an American soprano. She was born in Winnebago, Minnesota, United States of America. A graduate of St. Olaf College and Boston University , Kaduce won the 1999 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions...
and Phyllis Treigle
Phyllis Treigle
Phyllis Treigle is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and is a noted American soprano, and the daughter of the great bass-baritone Norman Treigle...
(opposite Michael Devlin as Blitch).
Susannah is one of the most performed American operas, second to Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
, and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with a performance on the very stage where it premiered February 24, 1955, in Ruby Diamond Auditorium at Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
. At the first performance, Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Florida State.
It has been speculated that the opera was inspired by McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, a period of intense fear of communism in America during the early 1950s. The opera also contains many feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
themes that had not been widely explored in popular culture at the time of the opera’s writing. Floyd has claimed that this opera, like his other operas, was meant to be different from a traditional opera.
The music is largely characterized by Appalachian folk melodies. Also included are some Protestant hymns and some traditional classical music. A particularly prominent part of the opera is Susannah’s soaring and melancholy aria in Act II, "The Trees on the Mountain", which is similar to Appalachian folk tunes but in fact Floyd's own composition.
Synopsis
Written during the McCarthy era, Susannah is based loosely on the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders. In New Hope Valley, Tennessee, Susannah – a pretty and well-mannered young woman of humble origins – is faced with hostility from her church community. The opera opens at a square dance given by her church; a group of wives, jealous of Susannah’s beauty and the attention it brings from their husbands, are gossiping about her. Mrs. McLean, one of the wives, states that you can’t expect more from someone who was raised by her drunken brother. Finally, the Reverend Olin Blitch, newly arrived to lead the congregation, enters and asks Susannah to dance despite the gossip. Later that evening, Susannah tells her admirer Little Bat – son of Mrs. McLean and her husband, an elder of the church – about the dance; Little Bat leaves abruptly once her brother Sam returns from hunting.The next morning Susannah is innocently bathing naked in the creek near her home; she is discovered by the elders, who are searching for a baptismal stream. They conceal their lust with outrage and tell the community of her wickedness. Susannah arrives at a church dinner that evening and is sent away, much to her confusion. Later, as she is pondering why she has been shunned, Little Bat tells her that the elders have denounced her for bathing in the nude, and admits that he was coerced into saying she seduced him.
Sam informs Susannah that she must make a public confession in order to be absolved. Though she claims she has nothing to confess, she goes to the service where Olin Blitch is preaching. When she is singled out to come forward, she runs away. Once the service has ended, Reverend Blitch goes to Susannah’s house and offers to pray for her soul; upon discovering that her brother is away, Blitch rapes her.
The next day Blitch, having discovered that Susannah was a virgin, comes to her and begs for forgiveness. He throws himself at Susannah’s mercy, but she refuses to forgive him. When Susannah tells Sam the story he threatens to kill Blitch; he leaves for the baptismal service, carrying his shotgun. Convinced that Susannah led her brother to murder, the community heads to her house to drive her out of the valley. However, Little Bat has warned her in advance, and when the vigilantes arrive she is waiting with a shotgun. They retreat, but she has effectively severed her ties with the community and her world.
Main Roles and World-Premiere Cast
- Susannah Polk - soprano (Phyllis CurtinPhyllis CurtinPhyllis Curtin is an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She was known for her creation of new roles such as the title role in the Carlisle Floyd opera Susannah, Catherine Earnshaw in Floyd's Wuthering Heights, and in...
) - Sam Polk - tenor (Walter James)
- Olin Blitch - bass-baritone (Mack HarrellMack HarrellMack Harrell was an American baritone who was regarded as one of the greatest concert singers of his generation....
) - Little Bat McLean - tenor (Eb Thomas)
- Elder McLean - baritone (Harrison Fisher)
- Elder Gleaton - tenor (Kenneth Nelson)
- Elder Hayes - tenor (Dayton Smith)
- Elder Ott - baritone (Lee Liming)
- Mrs. McLean - mezzo-soprano (Martha Kay Willis)
- Mrs. Gleaton - soprano (Catherine Murphy (singer))
- Mrs. Hayes - soprano (Joan Nichy)
- Mrs. Ott - contralto (Bette Jo Armstrong)
Production history
The Kammeroper in Vienna produced the opera in 1996 with Canadian Desmond Byrne as Blitch.Deutsche Oper Berlin premiered their production in 1997 with American bass-baritone Dean Petersen in the role of Blitch.
In 2010, with a cast including Latonia Moore as Susannah and James Morris as Blitch, the opera of Bilbao, Spain produced Susannah conducted by John Mauceri with the Robert Falls production premiered in Chicago but also produced at the Metropolitan Opera New York.
The opera's UK premiere was as a community project directed by John La Bouchardiere
John La Bouchardière
John La Bouchardière BMus MA is a British opera, film and television director.He was a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, studied at the University of Birmingham and was a staff director at English National Opera...
at mac (Birmingham)
Mac (Birmingham)
mac is a non-profit arts centre situated in Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. It was established in 1962 and is registered as an educational charity which host plays, concerts and films shows; and holds art exhibitions, music classes, and workshops for all ages.The centre re-opened...
in 1996. The first fully professional production in the UK was by English Touring Opera
English Touring Opera
English Touring Opera is an opera company in the United Kingdom. From 1979 to 1992 it was known as Opera 80.- About the company :Opera 80 was founded in 1979 by the Arts Council of Great Britain as the successor to Opera For All; in 1992 the company changed its name to English Touring Opera...
in 2008.
Discography
- Studer, Hadley, Ramey; Nagano, 1993-94 (Virgin Classics)
- Curtin, Cassilly, Treigle; Andersson, 1962 [live] (VAI)