Susannah

"Susannah" is an opera in two acts composed (music and text) by American opera composer Carlisle Floyd while he was on 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 seducing her. 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. [http://longwoodopera.org/synopses/susannah.html]

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, Anthony Dean Griffey 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, 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. [http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1999/042299/music1.html]

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.

Main Roles and World-Premiere Cast

*Susannah Polk - soprano (Phyllis Curtin)
*Sam Polk - tenor (Walter James)
*Olin Blitch - bass-baritone (Mack Harrell)
*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)

Discography

* Studer, Hadley, Ramey; Nagano, 1993-94 (Virgin Classics)
* Curtin, Cassilly, Treigle; Andersson, 1962 [live] (VAI)

Videography of "Revival Scene"

* Treigle; Yestadt, Treigle, 1958 [live] (Bel Canto Society)