February 24, 1955—The folk opera Susannah, an adaptation of the Apocryphal Biblical tale of sexual hypocrisy that was re-set by composer Carlisle Floyd in a fundamentalist Protestant, rural Tennessee community, premiered at Florida State University (FSU). Like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, it has outlived its McCarthy-era origins to become a performing-arts warhorse—in Floyd’s case, perhaps the American opera most performed by regional companies.
A regional company was, in fact, where I saw it performed a year and a half ago at the Chautauqua Institution, featuring all 44 students in that unique venue’s School of Music Department. The open-air backdrop in this upstate New York cultural mecca probably served the work even better than it would have been if staged in Chautauqua’s usual, more conventional, fully enclosed opera site, Norton Hall.
I didn't know what to expect of this work. I doubt if I’ve attended more than a half-dozen operas in my life. Moreover, one of my college friends had been rather dismissive of Floyd years ago when I asked him about the composer’s newest work at that time, Willie Stark (1981), an adaptation of All the King’s Men. But this particular performance was so accessible and well-performed that I sat enthralled throughout.
Jay Jackson’s staging—open-air in the back and sides—took on an undoubtedly different dimension as the evening went on. The plot’s growing darkness was paralleled by the weather just outside.
I suppose you could argue that the crack of thunder in the second act signaled the impending troubles in this musical tragedy. I'm not sure how much the closing of the side doors of the barn might have limited the suggestion of the play's mountain landscape or its crowd scenes, but the thunder and ferocious pounding of rain certainly drowned out a couple of singers.
Drama aplenty existed without even nature’s unexpected backup assistance.
Why has this opera become such a staple, not just for smaller regional companies but even larger institutions such as New York City Opera (where it opened a year after its FSU premiere) and the Metropolitan Opera (where a 1997 run gave Renee Fleming one of her many career triumphs to date)? Some of it has to do with the imperatives of running a contemporary opera company; some, with changes in American culture over time; and some with the work itself:
* Its verisimilitude derives from Floyd’s own familiarity with the environment. The son of a Methodist minister in North Carolina, Floyd was able to catch every nuance of the predominant tone of the Bible Belt: itinerant preachers, revival meetings, and an enclosed community that at its best can provide warmth and shelter but at worst can shun the outsider. By writing the libretto as well as the score, Floyd did not have to explain to a collaborator what he meant: he could translate his experiences directly.
* An American subject by an American composer offers a break from foreign classics done ad infinitum. Verdi and Wagner might provide the tried-and-true box office for opera’s aging audiences, but performing-arts companies—not just opera companies, but straight theater as well—also want either to try out new works or introduce audiences to lesser-known ones. Floyd’s opera affords these companies a chance to break this new ground.
* Accessible songs permit a wider range of performers tackling the work. Floyd’s “musical drama in two acts” seamlessly integrates folk tunes, hymns and dances. Though he created orchestration for it, Susannah can also be accompanied simply by a piano, as occurred at the Chautauqua performance I attended. The Act I aria “Ain’t It a Pretty Night” can be (and has been) sung as audition pieces by young sopranos, but divas of greater experience, such as Ms. Fleming, can also weave their spells with the song. New York Times critic Bernard Holland complained 11 years ago, in his review of the Metropolitan Opera performance, that the piece contained “no layers, no resonances, no implications beneath the surface,” but those who have seen the show over the years would differ.
* America’s culture wars provide the piece with continuing relevance. In certain ways, somewhat like the far more cynical musical theater piece, Chicago, Susannah might have been more than a generation ahead of its time. The televangelists of the 1980s increased the prominence of the Religious Right—but this enhanced position also opened up electronic preachers such as Jimmy Swaggart to charges of corruption because of the way they lived their private lives.
The Crucible, as I hinted earlier, arose from the 1950s politics of fear. Drama companies today, however, view it just as much as a critique of America’s lingering Puritan mores. (In the play, cries of witchcraft originate from the confused environment surrounding the female adolescents in the Rev. Parris’ household.)
Similarly, Floyd created his work out of the culture of suspicion wrought by McCarthyism. The elders in the opera, just like those in the colonial Salem of Miller’s play, incite hysteria in New Hope Valley, Tenn., in order to project elsewhere their own embarrassment over happening upon Susannah, who is innocently unaware that she’s being watched as she bathes nude.
Susannah left me interested in seeing how Floyd’s other operas (besides Willy Stark, they include Of Mice and Men and Cold Sassy Tree) stand up. I found this one exceedingly well-crafted—a major, if critical, examination of an intolerant strain that sometimes enters American religious life.
A regional company was, in fact, where I saw it performed a year and a half ago at the Chautauqua Institution, featuring all 44 students in that unique venue’s School of Music Department. The open-air backdrop in this upstate New York cultural mecca probably served the work even better than it would have been if staged in Chautauqua’s usual, more conventional, fully enclosed opera site, Norton Hall.
I didn't know what to expect of this work. I doubt if I’ve attended more than a half-dozen operas in my life. Moreover, one of my college friends had been rather dismissive of Floyd years ago when I asked him about the composer’s newest work at that time, Willie Stark (1981), an adaptation of All the King’s Men. But this particular performance was so accessible and well-performed that I sat enthralled throughout.
Jay Jackson’s staging—open-air in the back and sides—took on an undoubtedly different dimension as the evening went on. The plot’s growing darkness was paralleled by the weather just outside.
I suppose you could argue that the crack of thunder in the second act signaled the impending troubles in this musical tragedy. I'm not sure how much the closing of the side doors of the barn might have limited the suggestion of the play's mountain landscape or its crowd scenes, but the thunder and ferocious pounding of rain certainly drowned out a couple of singers.
Drama aplenty existed without even nature’s unexpected backup assistance.
Why has this opera become such a staple, not just for smaller regional companies but even larger institutions such as New York City Opera (where it opened a year after its FSU premiere) and the Metropolitan Opera (where a 1997 run gave Renee Fleming one of her many career triumphs to date)? Some of it has to do with the imperatives of running a contemporary opera company; some, with changes in American culture over time; and some with the work itself:
* Its verisimilitude derives from Floyd’s own familiarity with the environment. The son of a Methodist minister in North Carolina, Floyd was able to catch every nuance of the predominant tone of the Bible Belt: itinerant preachers, revival meetings, and an enclosed community that at its best can provide warmth and shelter but at worst can shun the outsider. By writing the libretto as well as the score, Floyd did not have to explain to a collaborator what he meant: he could translate his experiences directly.
* An American subject by an American composer offers a break from foreign classics done ad infinitum. Verdi and Wagner might provide the tried-and-true box office for opera’s aging audiences, but performing-arts companies—not just opera companies, but straight theater as well—also want either to try out new works or introduce audiences to lesser-known ones. Floyd’s opera affords these companies a chance to break this new ground.
* Accessible songs permit a wider range of performers tackling the work. Floyd’s “musical drama in two acts” seamlessly integrates folk tunes, hymns and dances. Though he created orchestration for it, Susannah can also be accompanied simply by a piano, as occurred at the Chautauqua performance I attended. The Act I aria “Ain’t It a Pretty Night” can be (and has been) sung as audition pieces by young sopranos, but divas of greater experience, such as Ms. Fleming, can also weave their spells with the song. New York Times critic Bernard Holland complained 11 years ago, in his review of the Metropolitan Opera performance, that the piece contained “no layers, no resonances, no implications beneath the surface,” but those who have seen the show over the years would differ.
* America’s culture wars provide the piece with continuing relevance. In certain ways, somewhat like the far more cynical musical theater piece, Chicago, Susannah might have been more than a generation ahead of its time. The televangelists of the 1980s increased the prominence of the Religious Right—but this enhanced position also opened up electronic preachers such as Jimmy Swaggart to charges of corruption because of the way they lived their private lives.
The Crucible, as I hinted earlier, arose from the 1950s politics of fear. Drama companies today, however, view it just as much as a critique of America’s lingering Puritan mores. (In the play, cries of witchcraft originate from the confused environment surrounding the female adolescents in the Rev. Parris’ household.)
Similarly, Floyd created his work out of the culture of suspicion wrought by McCarthyism. The elders in the opera, just like those in the colonial Salem of Miller’s play, incite hysteria in New Hope Valley, Tenn., in order to project elsewhere their own embarrassment over happening upon Susannah, who is innocently unaware that she’s being watched as she bathes nude.
Susannah left me interested in seeing how Floyd’s other operas (besides Willy Stark, they include Of Mice and Men and Cold Sassy Tree) stand up. I found this one exceedingly well-crafted—a major, if critical, examination of an intolerant strain that sometimes enters American religious life.
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