Floyd’s Susannah: Biblical Tale Told Tennessee Style By LISA ROBINSON In its first of two productions of operas by living American composers this season, the Juilliard Opera Center will present Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. Loosely based on the Apocryphal story of Susannah and the elders, Floyd’s version takes place in a fictionalized rural setting in Tennessee, a small, insular community where the church functions as the town’s center of social interaction. More...

Hilarity and Menace in Pinter’s The Hothouse By CRAIG BALDWIN Richard Feldman, the director of this month’s production of The Hothouse, and Baldwin, a fourth-year drama student, discuss Pinter’s hilarious and eerie play about some kind of regimented mental institute, where staff members are strangely violent and off-kilter, and what it’s like working with a writer renowned for the ambiguity and mystery in his work. " More...

Tully Vocal Arts Debut Offers Women’s Perspectives Through 20th-Century Song By MORGAN GRUNERUD “This is a concert where I love every song I am singing,” says soprano Jennifer Aylmer. “I believe in them absolutely.” The concert in question is the annual Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital, to take place on November 28. The program spans the 20th century, with all the selections—by Poulenc, Weill, Shostakovich, Bolcom, and a set of obscure Brazilian songs—from a woman’s point of view. More...

Inside the Mind of a Van Cliburn Contestant By VASSILY PRIMAKOV The writer, a fourth-year piano student of Jerome Lowenthal, was a semifinalist in the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition held last spring in Fort Worth, Tex. Before he left for the event, The Juilliard Journal asked Primakov to keep a diary, where he would record not only day-to-day events, but also his thoughts and feelings about being in the competition. Here are excerpts from that diary. More...