[Met Performance] CID:331543
Metropolitan Opera Premiere
Susannah {1} Metropolitan Opera House: 03/31/1999.
(Debut: Robert Falls
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
March 31, 1999
Metropolitan Opera Premiere
SUSANNAH {1}
Floyd-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
Susannah received seven performances this season.
Production a gift of Francis Goelet
Addtional funding by The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust
[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.]
Review of Martin Bernheimer in the June 1999 issue of Opera (UK)
"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.