Carlisle Floyd is one of the most prolific American opera composers. He has a prodigious catalog of operas written as early as 1949 (Slow Dusk); and his most recent is Prince of Players, which was first performed on March 5, 2016. It is therefore more than a little disappointing that only two of those operas can be found in the Performance Archive of the San Francisco Opera (SFO). Furthermore, both of them, Susannah and Of Mice and Men, were first given limited presentations as part of the SPring Opera Theater (SPOT), which presented more limited performances than the primary subscription series and ran from 1961 to 1982. (For the record, Susannah was first performed in Florida in February of 1955.)
Patricia Racette at the beginning of Susannah (photography by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)
It took until the opening weekend of the 2014–2015 season for Susannah to enter full subscription series status. Produced by SFO, the opera was given five performances between September 6 and September 21. Having seen several other performance of the opera by that time, I could not have been more delighted to see the treatment it received on this occasion. The title role was sung by soprano Patricia Racette; and the two principal male roles were sung by bass Raymond Aceto (Reverend Olin Blitch) and tenor Brandon Jovanovich (Sam Polk, Susannah’s brother). The production was staged by Michael Cavanagh, and Karen Kamensek made her debut as conductor.
Those who missed those five performances should take advantage of the fact that Frank Zamacona prepared another first-rate video document of this SFO production. This is the video that will be available for streaming through the Opera is ON service for the remainder of this weekend. As was the case with Zamacona’s approach to Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” this is a video account that allows the viewer to appreciate many subtleties unlikely to be seen from even the best seat in the War Memorial Opera House.
The reason that this is the case is that this is a production in which details matter. The basic scenario involves whether or not the title character, an attractive young women living in the remote hills of New Hope Valley in Tennessee, has committed sins of the flesh. Her potential for guilt is amplified by the fact that her brother is a known drunk, although, in the scenes in which we encounter him, he comes across as relatively affable and a good brother that cares for his sister. Nevertheless, the four elders of New Hope Valley and their respective wives are convinced that Susannah is a sinner; and they seek the assistance of the itinerant Blitch when he comes to town.
Cavanagh’s pays particular attention to endowing each of those elders and wives with unique character traits; and this is where that phrase “details matter” comes into play. Among the performers of those eight roles, the one with the most impressive acting chops is mezzo Catherine Cook. While she is more frequently associated with some of the most impressive interpretations of comic roles in SFO season offerings, in Susannah she embodies righteousness at its most wrathful. Her every gesture is a sinister warning to fear the release of that wrath. Without ever overplaying her part, Cook plays a key role in capturing the full force of the danger that Susannah encounters when under the suspicions of the God-fearing citizens of New Hope Valley.
I suppose a passing reference to “the devil is in the details” would apply here. Nevertheless, when confronted with a narrative about a remote small town, it is through those details that the acute observer comes to appreciate not only what is going on but also why things proceed the way they do. While the “surface structure” of this opera has a decidedly folksy feel to both the music and the dispositions of the characters, Zamacona’s eye for detail will allow the viewer of this video to appreciate just how many undercurrents there are and how deep they run.
To be fair, there is something prototypical about woman-as-outcast narratives. One of the more interesting elements of Cavanagh’s staging is that we first see a much older Susannah sitting in front of her house with a rifle in her lap. The opera then begins; and, when we come to the end, there she is in her chair with the rifle. Those that particularly appreciate American opera composers probably know that The Ballad of Baby Doe, composed by Douglas Moore in 1956, is another woman-as-outcast narrative; and it ends exactly the same way. This is basically an Ur-motif of the genre, and I appreciated how Cavanagh chose to give it proper attention.
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