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 in the Juilliard Theater on November 14, 16, and 18. The opera, composed when Floyd was just 28 years old, has remained popular ever since its premiere in 1955, and is now the most frequently performed full-length American opera.

Conductor Julius Rudel with singers (left to right) Deborah Domanski, Alison Tupay, and Christina Carr in a rehearsal of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. (Photo by Jane Rubinsky)

The libretto, written by the composer, is loosely based on the Apocryphal story of Susannah and the elders, in which two elders, whose overtures Susannah has rebuffed, accuse her of adultery. In the Biblical story, Susannah is vindicated when the elders give conflicting reports of where they witnessed her alleged impropriety; they are sentenced to death for their lie.

Floyd’s version of the story takes place in a fictionalized rural setting, New Hope Valley in Tennessee, a small, insular community where the church functions as the town’s center of social interaction. Susannah Polk, a beautiful and good-natured teenager, is an orphan who has been raised by her older brother, Sam, a kindly trapper with a weakness for drink. Her troubles begin when a traveling minister, Olin Blitch, arrives in town to lead a revival meeting. The four elders of the church, out in the woods searching for a baptismal creek for Blitch to use, spy Susannah bathing nude. Outraged at Susannah’s “shamelessness,” they insist that she “must be brought to repentance.” As rumors start to spread—with the help of the elders’ wives—throughout the community, Susannah’s simple-minded friend Little Bat McLean adds fuel to the fire when he makes a false confession that he and Susannah have had relations.

		Susannah—Coaching Opera With a Twang, by Kathryn LaBouff

Having heard just one side of the story, Blitch singles out Susannah at a revival meeting and nearly goads her into repenting. Genuinely concerned for the state of her soul, Blitch follows Susannah home and pressures her further, but she continues to insist on her innocence, finally breaking down in tears and eliciting a sympathetic reaction from Blitch. When his desire to assist her spiritually is overtaken by his own feelings of loneliness and physical desire, Blitch takes advantage of Susannah only to discover that her assertions of innocence were true all along. The next day, as the guilt-ridden Blitch unsuccessfully tries to persuade the community of Susannah’s blamelessness, Sam returns from a trapping expedition and Susannah tells him what has happened. Sam’s misguided attempt to avenge his sister’s honor by killing Blitch leaves Susannah further ostracized from the community, and she emerges embittered but determined to remain on her property, as she declares, “till I’m ready to leave, an’ that’ll be some time to come.”

In transporting the story of Susannah to a contemporary setting, Floyd, a native of Latta, S.C., drew on his own experiences growing up as the son of a Methodist minister who served a number of small, rural churches. Both the music of Susannah, which incorporates vernacular genres such as hymns, folk songs, and square dance music, and the libretto, with its use of regional dialect and slang expressions, vividly evoke that heritage. The harmonically conservative, lyrical approach of the opera aligns Floyd with contemporaries such as Copland, Barber, Bernstein, Ward, and others writing operatic and stage works during the 1950s and beyond. Susannah’s two central arias, “Ain’t It a Pretty Night” and “The Trees on the Mountains,” beloved by generations of American sopranos, stand as shining examples of the genre.

While Floyd’s version of Susannah, like the Biblical tale, does not reflect well on the religious community it depicts, the composer has maintained, “I knew quite a bit about Southern religious revivals, but Susannah is not an attack on them or religion. Susannah is basically a plea for tolerance and defense of human dignity.” Susannah was intended, however, as a critique of the McCarthy-inspired paranoia over communism that divided the country during the period when the opera was written. As Floyd points out, “The McCarthy era did more than anything else to put a cloak of silence over the country in terms of defending a situation. That underlies very much the story in Susannah. The fact that nobody really speaks up or defends her for fear of being accused themselves is all it takes to make a witch hunt.” As Susannah remarks when she tries to explains to Sam why she gave in to Blitch’s advances, “I was tired o’ fightin’ and tired o’ livin’ in a world where the truth has to fight so hard to git itself believed… If people was gonna believe the worst anyway, then I didn’t see what diff’rence it made.”

Throughout his career, Floyd has displayed a gift for dramatic writing, serving as both composer and librettist for all of his operas. He received B.M. and M.M. degrees—each in both in composition and piano—from Syracuse University, where he studied composition with Ernst Bacon and supplemented his music studies with classes in creative writing. In 1951, Floyd began his teaching career at Florida State University, and in 1976 left Florida for the University of Houston, where he served as the M. D. Anderson Professor of Music until his retirement from teaching in 1996.

Angela Fout

Susannah received its premiere in 1955 at Florida State University, with Phyllis Curtin as Susannah and Mack Harrell, a Juilliard alumnus, in the role of Olin Blitch. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Ms. Curtin, Erich Leinsdorf agreed to present the work at New York City Opera the following season, with Curtin as Susannah and Norman Treigle as Blitch. Following its New York premiere, the opera won the New York City Music Critics’ Circle Award, and in 1958 was chosen as the American operatic entry to the Brussels World’s Fair. Its initial success largely undiminished, over the next three decades the opera became a staple of regional and university companies. But in the 1990s, as American singers with a keen interest in performing American repertoire rose to prominence, Susannah and Floyd’s later works began to experience a dramatic resurgence in popularity.

Compelling evidence of that popularity is found in the number of first-time performances the opera has received at the country’s most prestigious houses during the past decade. In 1993, Susannah was given its first performance by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, with Juilliard alumna Renée Fleming as Susannah and Samuel Ramey as Blitch. Co-produced with the Houston Grand Opera, Susannah came to Houston in 1996. In 1999, the same production was presented at the Metropolitan Opera. The opera has also been presented by major European companies. It received its Austrian premiere in 1996 in a Vienna Kammeroper production directed by BrigItte Fassbaender, and in 1997 was performed by the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Matt Burns

Despite its lasting popularity, the only studio recording of the work is a 1994 release on Virgin Classics, with Cheryl Studer as Susannah, Samuel Ramey as Blitch, and Jerry Hadley as Sam. Conducted by Kent Nagano with the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Lyon, the recording won a Grammy award.

Floyd’s earliest major work remains his most frequently performed, but many of his subsequent operas have enjoyed considerable success as well. Significant works in Floyd’s ouevre include The Passion of Jonathan Wade (1962, revised 1991), commissioned by the Ford Foundation for the New York City Opera; Of Mice and Men (1969), a project sanctioned by Steinbeck but not premiered until after his death; Bilby’s Doll (1976), commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera in celebration of the U.S. bicentennial; and Willie Stark (1981), based on Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Floyd’s most recent work, an adaptation of the popular Olive Anne Burns novel Cold Sassy Tree, is his first comedy. The opera was co-commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera and San Diego Opera, and premiered to critical acclaim in Houston in April 2000.

Brandon McReynolds

The Juilliard Opera Center’s production of Susannah, which represents the first time the work has been performed at the School, will be directed by Eve Shapiro. The cast includes soprano Angela Fout as Susannah Polk, tenor Simon O’Neill as Sam Polk, bass-baritone Matt Burns as Olin Blitch, and tenor Brandon McReynolds as Little Bat McLean. Baritone Woody Bynum will sing the role of Elder McLean, with tenor Jang Won Lee as Elder Gleaton, tenor Richard Cox as Elder Hayes, bass-baritone Andrew Nolan as Elder Ott, mezzo-soprano Christine Carr as Mrs. McLean, mezzo-soprano Deborah Domanski as Mrs. Gleason, soprano Monica Yunus as Mrs. Hayes, and mezzo-soprano Alison Tupay as Mrs. Ott. Maestro Julius Rudel will conduct the opera’s three performances (November 14 and 16 at 8:00 p.m. and November 18 at 2:00 p.m.). Tickets are $20 and are available through the Juilliard box office.

Lisa Robinson is a writer for The Campaign for Juilliard.