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These pages contain program notes written for Redwood
Symphony. You are free to use the information in your own program
notes. If you quote me directly, please attribute it. Thanks!
These notes were edited, amended, and otherwise
improved by Eric Kujawsky, Peter Stahl, and others.
Barbara Heninger
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Carlisle Floyd
The Sermon
Carlisle
Floyd
(b. 1926),
the son of a Methodist pastor and pianist, also studied piano with Ernst Bacon
at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C., and at Syracuse University. He became
a teacher at Florida State University in 1946.
He has focused mainly on opera, and, like Moore, many of his themes have been
based on American tales or historical figures, including The
Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair
(1962),
Of
Mice and Men
(1970),
Willie
Stark
(1981,
a fictionalization of the life of Huey Long), and Cold
Sassy Tree
(2000).
Even Susannah
(1956),
an opera that is not specifically American in origin, is recast in American
terms.
Susannah
was Floyd’s first big success, premiering at the New York City Opera to great
acclaim and winning Floyd both the New York Music Critic’s Circle Award and a
Guggenheim Foundation grant. It is based on a tale from the biblical apocrypha,
about a young girl who is accused as a ‘sinner’ by the town elders because
they feel guilt at their own lust toward her. Floyd, who worked as his own
librettist, chose the tale in response to the McCarthy ‘communist hunts’ of
the day, and his outrage at “the idea that accusation was all that was needed
as proof of guilt.” The opera places the character of Susannah in a small town
in Tennessee, where the Elders and their wives entreat traveling preacher Olin
Blitch to induce Susannah to ‘repent’ what they believe are her sins. Blitch
approaches Susannah and ends up seducing her; feeling guilty and realizing she
is innocent, he attempts to get the townspeople to forgive her, but fails and is
instead killed by Susannah’s brother. “The Sermon” is a fiery sermon
delivered to the townspeople by Blitch.
February 9, 2008
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