Opera in the Ozarks

The decade of the 1950s was a special time in the history of American music. It was a golden era for musical theater and a period when opera and musical theater were moving closer together. There was a desire to achieve a truly American operatic style and many creative efforts to achieve this end were generated. Such operas as The Tender Land by Aaron Copland and The Ballad of Baby Doe by Douglas Moore were written during this period. Other gifted composers of this generation were such luminaries as Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Ward and Gian-Carlo Menotti.

Carlisle Floyd embarked on his career during these exciting times. He was just 28 years old in 1955 when his opera SUSANNAH made its debut in Tallahassee, Florida. The following year it won popular and critical acclaim at its New York premiere, winning the New York Music Critics’ Circle Award. The New York City Opera production traveled to Belgium in 1958 for the Brussels Exposition, establishing Floyd on an international level. Since 1955 SUSANNAH has been given more than 300 productions and seen more than 800 performances worldwide.

The impetus for writing SUSANNAM originated in 1953 in a conversation with a friend at Florida State University who thought an updated version of the Apocryphal Book of Susanna would be a worthy subject for an opera. The conversation stimulated Floyd’s imagination so thoroughly that he became determined to undertake the venture. His knowledge of the biblical story of Susanna was rudimentary and he did not actually read the Apocryphal tale in detail until after he wrote his libretto. Floyd considers his libretto to be entirely original.

SUSANNAH is consistent with many other operas and stage works of the period in its folkloric quality, lyricism and harmonically conservative music. Some consider it a folk opera, but Floyd identifies it as a musical drama. In his search for authenticity he wrote a plainspoken libretto that resonates with a Southern hill country dialect. The rural setting and parlance was familiar to him from childhood experiences. Much of the opera’s music is based on hymn tunes and folk melodies. The vocal lines are both sung and half-spoken. As Floyd stated, “In my opera there is quite a bit of spoken text, Sprechstimme, and also half-sung lines. When it comes to full singing, I want it to come from the spoken to the fully-sung text as if to say ‘Now do you get the point?’” Additionally, he felt it was essential that the text be idiomatically correct. Floyd’s vocal lines present authentic speech regulated by pitch and rhythm, all contained within a dissonant harmonic and polytonal musical language.

The opera was written during a period called “the red scare,” a time of public fear and government investigations into perceived Communist infiltration in American government and society. One name associated with this period was Senator Joseph McCarthy whose accusatory style and investigative practices came to be known as “McCarthyism.” Floyd said, “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.” Floyd’s opera was a reaction to the excesses of the McCarthy era without being overtly political. Floyd is engaged more in revealing the timeless issues of human behavior and the flaw in some human minds that sees evil where none exists. He shows that jealousy has its roots in envy and that baseless accusations, intolerance, and mob rule are the natural consequences of zealotry. As Floyd once said, “Zealotry is one of the most frightening elements in the human mind. It proceeds on the assumption that there’s one right way, and it’s mine. It’s a specter that never really goes away. And it’s pure projection - you project onto others your own guilt or fears.”

SUSANNAH is an opera firmly rooted in American musical tradition and its plot, stage action, characterization, diction, and music are artfully blended. The composer wrote both the libretto and the music and created a highly unified piece of theater. The characters are compelling, the heroine strong and resolute and the underlying themes timeless. The nearly through-composed music is clearly of the 2 century but remains understandable and accessible to the opera-going public. Carlisle Floyd’s SUSANNAH is one of the masterpieces of 20 century American opera and has established itself as a classic in the grand opera tradition.

The origin of the word Apocrypha comes from the Greek word apokryphos, which means “hidden things.” It is the word used by Saint Jerome early in the 5 Century to identify the biblical books that were part of the Greek version of the Old Testament but were not part of the Hebrew Bible. Saint Jerome’s larger task was to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin. His finished work was called the Vulgate, the Roman Catholic Bible. The Apocryphal texts were made part of the Catholic Bible. Over the centuries the status of the Apocryphal material has been discussed and debated by church scholars and theologians. Among its many literary forms are popular narrative, religious history and philosophy, morality stories and poetry. Since the 19th century, the Apocrypha has been studied for its historical value. It is considered by some to bridge the gap between the end of the Old Testament narrative and the beginning of the New Testament. Much of the disagreement about these texts centers on whether they can be considered sacred canon. During the Reformation these texts were removed from the new Protestant Bible. In the 17 century, the King James Bible, the standard used by English- speaking Protestants, placed the Apocrypha in an appendix. The Apocrypha are still part of the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles.

In Babylon there lived a wealthy man of the Jewish people named Joakim. He was married to Susanna, a beautiful and pious woman raised according to the Laws of Moses. Because Joakim was held in such high esteem among his people, the Elders met at Joakim’s house for meetings and to hold their trials. There was a walled garden attached to the house and it was to this garden that Susanna would retreat when the Elders were in attendance. Two of the Elders became aware of Susanna and observed her going into the garden. After a time they began to lust after her and decided to sneak back to spy on her and hope for a time to catch her alone. One hot day, Susanna and her two maids went to the walled garden and Susanna decided to bathe. She sent her two maids out for soap and olive oil and told them to lock the gates as they left. She then prepared to bathe.

The two Elders, who were hiding in the garden, saw their opportunity and revealed themselves. They told the shocked Susanna that they greatly desired her and they wanted her to sleep with them. If she refused they would say they found her in the garden committing adultery with a young man. Susanna refused them, and cried out. The elders promptly shouted over her cries for help. When people gathered, the Elders made their accusations. Everyone was shocked, for she was thought to be a virtuous woman. The two Elders made their case and demanded her death. The people believed the Elders and agreed she should be stoned. Susanna proclaimed her innocence and appealed to God for help. The young Daniel was inspired to come to Susanna’s aid. He stopped the proceedings and chided the hastiness of the crowd. Daniel asked that the two Elders be questioned separately. When Daniel asked each one about the details of their story, the Elders contradicted each other. Daniel knew then that they were lying. Daniel proclaimed their crime and the people realized the Elders were guilty of bearing false witness. Susanna was set free and returned to her overjoyed family. The two Elders were condemned to the same punishment Susanna would have received - they were stoned.

The story of Susanna and the Elders has been the subject of hundreds of paintings, many of them found in the great art museums of the world. Old Testament figures and themes were a popular subject in 16 and l7 century paintings. Susanna’s story not only captured the imagination of artists but it created an opportunity to paint the female body, both naked and partially clothed. Some of the paintings focus on Susanna alone, but many show the two Elders as well, either as menacing figures in the background or intimidating Susanna directly.

Painters of Susanna and the Elders included such Old Masters as Titian, Tintaretto, Rubens, Van Dyke, Rembrandt, and Veronese, to name only a few. One artist currently of great interest whose first known painting was Susanna and the Elders is Artemisia Gentileschi, who painted this subject in 1610 at the age of seventeen. She has become something of a feminist heroine since being brought forward as an example of a highly talented but neglected woman painter of the past.

There is also a musical adaptation of the biblical Susanna and the Elders by Georg Friedrich Handel. Handel composed his oratorio Susanna in 1749.