Susannah: Ain't It a Memorable Night

By Truman C. Wang
Saturday, August 10, 2002

Susannah

Opera in Two Acts by
Carlisle Floyd (b.1926)
Sung in English with supertitle

Michael Morgan, conductor
Josemaria Condemi, director
Cameron Anderson, set designer
Barbara Ann Gherzi, costume designer
James Aitken, lighting designer

Performance of Saturday, August 10, 2002
at Kofmann Theatre,
Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts

All photos by TOM BACON, courtesy of Festival Opera

WALNUT CREEK, CALIF  – The Festival Opera has done it again.  Those who were present at the opening night of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah must agree with me that the production surpassed anything that one had seen or heard at the Dean Lesher Center in recent memory.

Cynthia Clayton as Susannah Brandon Jovanovich as Sam

Much of the success of the newly-revamped company is owing to one man: the new Artistic Director Michael Morgan, without whose vision and persistence this production would not have been possible.  Like the opera's intrepid heroine, Mr. Morgan fought against heavy odds and the company ‘elders’ to bring about positive changes that will hopefully nurse the Festival Opera back to fiscal health.

Since its world premiere in 1955 in Tallahassee, Florida, Susannah has been one of the most frequently performed of contemporary operas.  Its story of mountain valley intolerance is very direct and its music, though not using folk material, is perfectly attuned.  Few operas match so perfectly story, diction and music.  Amazingly, Carlisle Floyd was 29 when he wrote his first opera – both the words and the music – in only three months' time.

Cynthia Clayton (Left) as Susannah, Act I

The simple and elegant production design by Josemaria Condemi features atmospheric sets, costumes and a projection backdrop that tenderly evoke a small Tennessee farm, with bluegrass and corn as high as an elephant’s eye.  The scenes come alive thanks to James Aitken’s dramatic lighting.  The undulating waves of the creek, projected onto the backdrop, and the silhouette of a bathing Susannah combine to achieve a particularly alluring effect.

The uniformly excellent cast includes tenor Wayne J. Davis as a delightful Little Bat McLean, a shifty-eyed, simple-minded youth with a secret crush on Susannah.   Tenor Brandon Jovanovich, as Susannah’s brother Sam, possesses a burly but gentle instrument that is full of angst and poetic ardor in the Act One aria, in which he tells Susannah, “About the way people is made,…an’ how they like to believe what’s bad.”  Baritone Hector Vasquez, a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow, portrayed the itinerant evangelist Olin Blitch (great Dickensian names in this opera!).  His dramatic half-sung, half-spoken delivery of the sermon in Act One and the desperate plea for forgiveness in Act Two were the mark of a fine singing actor.

Soprano Cynthia Clayton was an unforgettable Susannah.  Hearing Ms. Clayton, I was reminded once again how acting and singing are inseparably fused in opera at its finest, and that one would be hard pressed to tell where costumes, make-up, lighting, acting and singing severally end or begin – infused as they are into a grand, organic whole that is opera.  Although not looking exactly the part of a girl “goin’ on nineteen”, Ms. Clayton nonetheless managed to convey a sweet, virginal quality in her singing of “Ain’t it a pretty night”, with radiant soft tones that shimmered like “stars in heaven”.  It is a tribute to the artist’s rare gift for drama that we were able to witness, with chilling realism, in song and in spoken word, Susannah’s transformation from a wide-eyed innocent young girl into a tragic, self-imposed exile at the end, with no hope of redemption.  The pathos-filled rendition of “Come back, O summer”, sung in a thread-bare tone thinning to the point of cracking, was heartbreaking.  Ms. Clayton’s Susannah was truly a superb creation. 

Cynthia Clayton as Susannah,  Brandon Jovanovich as Sam

The Festival Opera chorus lent enthusiastic, animated support as villagers in the square dance and as the church choir (“Come, sinner, tonight’s the night.”)   For conductor Michael Morgan, it was an obvious labor of love, and it showed in the Seduction scene, where the slowly descending figures on muted strings and flutes sounded particularly desolate and ominous, mirroring Susannah’s words, “I’m so tired.  I jus can’t fight any mo”.  Under Maestro Morgan’s new leadership, the Festival Opera’s future is looking brighter than ever. 

Truman C. Wang is editor of Classical Voice.

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