[Met Performance] CID:331543

Metropolitan Opera Premiere, New Production

Susannah
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, March 31, 1999

Debut : Robert Falls




Susannah (1)
Carlisle Floyd | Carlisle Floyd
Susannah
Renée Fleming

Sam Polk
Jerry Hadley

Rev. Olin Blitch
Samuel Ramey

Little Bat McLean
John McVeigh

Elder McLean
James Courtney

Mrs. McLean
Joyce Castle

Elder Gleaton
Jerold Siena

Mrs. Gleaton
Jane Dutton

Elder Hayes
Jonathan Welch

Mrs. Hayes
Jennifer Welch-Babidge

Elder Ott
LeRoy Lehr

Mrs. Ott
Jane Shaulis

Square Dance Caller
Howard Richman

First Man
Ross Crolius

Second Man
Kenneth Young


Conductor
James Conlon


Production
Robert Falls [Debut]

Designer
Michael Yeargan

Lighting Designer
Duane Schuler

Composer
Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd



Susannah received seven performances this season.
Although this was the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Susannah, Floyd's opera had been given twenty-seven times by the Metropolitan Opera National Company during its initial season. This included three performances at the New York State Theater. The National Company production premiere of Susannah occurred on 9/20/1965.

FUNDING:
Production a gift of Francis Goelet
Addtional funding by The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust

Review 1:

Review of Martin Bernheimer in the June 1999 issue of Opera

"Ain't it a pretty night," Susannah Polk sings famously in Carlisle Floyd's opera of 1955, which made it to the Metropolitan Opera on March 31, and not a decade too soon. And it was pretty. Mighty pretty. Maybe too pretty.

Floyd, 28 when he wrote his folksy tragedy, never was much of an innovator, but he knew how to make effective use of the tools he borrowed. His delineation of Susanna and the Elders, the Biblical narrative transposed to rural Tennessee, made its impact with devices Puccini might have regarded as simplistic if not tawdry. Still, the South Carolina native created compelling character portraits, developed the plot with clarity, and savoured the value of a memorable tune. If nothing else, Susannah remains a terrific modern opera for people who hate modern opera.

The Met production, borrowed from Chicago and Houston, pleaded Floyd's case somewhat haltingly. A painterly show-curtain predicated on Thomas Hart Benton set the mood nicely, and Michael Yeargan's fluid decor defined time (the Depression) and place (America Rusticana) with cool, semi-stylized precision. Robert Falls evoked accommodating moods and picturesque images but also introduced some fussy distractions: poor Susannah had to clamber up to the roof of her shack to apostrophize the stars; her stoic brother was turned into a comic hick; and the protagonist made her break with the community of intolerants not, as prescribed, with a searing slap at the face of the lascivious village idiot, but with a cumbersome nudge by rifle butt. Although James Conlon controlled the ebb and flow of the score sympathetically in the pit, he tended to bury the vocal line in brassy excess.

As the victimized heroine who depends on the kindness of preachers, Renée Fleming sang exquisitely - ah, those high pianissimo flights. Unfortunately, she overdid the nasal twang and settled for wan interpretative generalities until the finale, in which she compromised sympathy by interpolating a mad scene. Samuel Ramey underplayed the magnetic hysteria of the revivalist Olin Blitch, but offered sombre and seductive vocalism as compensation. Jerry Hadley sounded like a hero and acted like a bumpkin as an all-too-alcoholic Sam Polk. John McVeigh focused the innocence behind the cruelty of the mentally challenged Little Bat.

The hypocritical townsfolk, solo and choral, performed with zeal. Joyce Castle as Mrs. McLean earned the usual unwanted laugh, however, with the line at the church supper signaling Susannah's doom: "I wouldn't tech them peas o' her'n'. Operatic melodrama is a fragile thing.



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