Finally, the Reverend Olin Blitch, newly arrived to lead the congregation, enters and asks Susannah to dance despite the gossip. McLean, one of the wives, states that you can't expect more from someone who was raised by her drunken brother, Sam. The opera opens at a square dance given by her church a group of wives, jealous of Susannah's beauty and the attention it brings from their husbands, are gossiping about her. In New Hope Valley, Tennessee, Susannah – a pretty and well-mannered young woman of humble origins – is faced with hostility from her church community. Written during the McCarthy era, Susannah is based loosely on the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders. In 2019, Rhiannon Giddens released a vernacular version of "Trees on the Mountains" on her album, There Is No Other. A particularly prominent part of the opera is Susannah's soaring and melancholy aria in Act II, "The Trees on the Mountain", which is similar to Appalachian folk tunes but in fact Floyd's own composition. Also included are some Protestant hymns and some traditional classical music. The music is largely characterized by Appalachian folk melodies. Floyd said this opera was meant to be different from a traditional opera. The opera also contains many feminist themes that had not been widely explored in popular culture at the time of the opera's writing. It has been speculated that the opera was inspired by McCarthyism, and threat of institutional Hollywood communist invasion of America during the early 1950s. At the first performance, Carlisle Floyd was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Florida State. Susannah is one of the most performed American operas, second to Porgy and Bess, and celebrated its 50th anniversary with a performance on the very stage where it premiered February 24, 1955, in Ruby Diamond Auditorium at Florida State University. Other well-known sopranos who have portrayed the heroine have included Lee Venora, Joy Clements, Maralin Niska, Nancy Shade, Diana Soviero, Karan Armstrong, Kelly Kaduce and Phyllis Treigle (opposite Michael Devlin as Blitch). Ramey also recorded the complete opera with Cheryl Studer as Susannah and Jerry Hadley as Sam. It received its Metropolitan Opera premiere in 1999, with Renée Fleming singing the title role, Jerry Hadley singing Sam and Samuel Ramey singing Blitch. The opera was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award for Best New Opera in 1956 and was chosen to represent American music and culture at the World's Fair at Brussels in 1958, with a production (by Frank Corsaro) that featured Phyllis Curtin and Norman Treigle. The story focuses on 18-year-old Susannah Polk, an innocent girl who is targeted as a sinner in the small mountain town of New Hope Valley, in the Southern American state of Tennessee. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders, though the latter story has a more positive ending. Susannah is an opera in two acts by the American composer Carlisle Floyd, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University.
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