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<\/p>\nHas it really been a century since composer and librettist Carlisle Floyd (1926-2021) was born on June 11? Floyd was only 27 when he wrote the full-length opera “Susannah” (1955) in his modest cottage on Call Street.<\/p>\n
The dinky abode sat one block from the main drag of Tennessee Street in Tallahassee near Florida State University, where Floyd taught piano. Little did Floyd know that he was about to be thrust into music history and acquire the title of the Father of American Opera.<\/p>\n
A lofty description granted, but Floyd, whom I got to know in his later years, always carried himself with gentlemanly manners. He had a hint of his native South Carolina accent.<\/p>\n
A real class act and an understatedly elegant dresser, to boot. “I was a kid, I wasn’t daunted by writing a libretto and the music,” Floyd said in 2005 when Florida State Opera staged “Suzannah” on its 50th anniversary. “Of course, I had no reputation as a composer. I had only written some dance music and a one-act opera. I was flying blind.”<\/p>\n
‘Timeless and timely’<\/p>\n
That debut opera, based on an Apocrypha story left out of many versions of the Bible, is about a young woman spied upon by male church elders during her bath. The men’s carnal thoughts are blamed on the female, of course. The work had its world premiere at FSU’s Ruby Diamond Concert Hall. The opera, re-set in the puritanical South, was a not-so-subtle critique of hypocrisy and the then-current McCarthyism.<\/p>\n
Filled with “the brashness of youth,” Floyd said he approached famed FSU music dean Karl Kuersteiner with the idea of backing a full production of “Susannah.” Kuersteiner agreed. The budget was set at $1,500.<\/p>\n
“That wouldn’t go very far these days, would it?” Floyd said and laughed in 2015.<\/p>\n
The opera became an instant hit at FSU.<\/p>\n
“Susannah” caught fire when it was staged at New York City Opera in 1956 starring soprano Phyillis Curtin (1921-2016), who originated the title role in the Tallahassee premiere. It has since become the second most performed American full-length opera in the world next to “Porgy and Bess” (1935).<\/p>\n
In 1999, “Susannah” was performed at the Metropolitan Opera House with superstar soprano Renee Fleming in the lead. That year, the Metropolitan added the work to its permanent repertoire, an honor that’s not bestowed on many American operas or living composers.<\/p>\n
“I never anticipated seeing this in my lifetime, but I’m certainly glad I did,” Floyd said at the Met in ’99.<\/p>\n
“It is timeless and timely all at once,” said conductor Christopher James Ray, 37, an FSU opera graduate and former Floyd assistant who will take the podium on June 20 for the Carlisle Floyd Centennial concert in Carnegie Hall in Midtown Manhattan.<\/p>\n
That program will include two arias from “Susannah” and works from other Floyd operas such as “Willie Stark” (1981) and “Cold Sassy Tree” (2000). The FSU choir is featured in the Carnegie concert.<\/p>\n
Also in June, Ray will conduct the Floyd opera “Of Mice and Men” (1969) in Des Moine. That production then travels to Houston, where Floyd worked for two decades starting in the mid-1970s, before coming to Ruby Diamond Concert Hall on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1.<\/p>\n
Call him up<\/p>\n
When Florida State Opera director Matthew Lata put together a production of the Grammy Award-winning “Prince of Players” (2016) by Floyd, his final opera, Lata had a handy source nearby.<\/p>\n
“How many times when you have a question about the opera, you can just call the composer up on the phone?” Lata asked.<\/p>\n
Floyd even showed up at dress rehearsal to offer advice and talk with old friend Douglas Fisher, the orchestra conductor of “Prince.”<\/p>\n
That doesn’t happen with Verdi or Puccini.<\/p>\n
Ah, but don’t get the idea Floyd was a stuffed shirt, despite having traveled to The White House to be awarded the National Medal of Arts from the president in 2014.<\/p>\n
For years, poet, FSU professor and music writer David Kirby, now 81, had lunch with Floyd and friends.<\/p>\n
“For the longest time, I’d meet three of the happiest guys I’d know for lunch on Fridays at Riccardo’s when it was on the truck route,” Kirby said. “They were all octogenarians: Carlisle, Bill Rogers from History (Department) and (FSU pianist) Lenny Mastrogiacomo. Carlisle always had the same thing, a foot-long roast beef sub, of which he’d eat half and take half home for dinner.”<\/p>\n
The weekly topics ranged from politics to opera (naturally) to the early days at FSU.<\/p>\n
“I just loved to hear Carlisle’s stories, especially ones where he and the other two guys and their wives gathered at Carlisle and (Floyd’s wife) Kay’s little house on Call Street across from the music building when they all first came to FSU. They’d load LPs onto the phonograph, pour the scotch and bourbon liberally, and ‘rock out’ as surely as any raver does today on molly and EDM.”<\/p>\n
The next generation<\/p>\n
When openly gay vocalist\/opera composer Rufus Wainwright, then 44, came to perform at Opening Nights at FSU in 2018, I got a chance to interview him via phone as a preview to the show. When opera came up, I casually mentioned that Floyd, then a spry 91, lived in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n
“Oh, that’s great,” Wainwright said. “I didn’t know he was there. I would love to meet him. I will work on it.”<\/p>\n
I figured Wainwright was just being nice and nothing would come of it. Later, I found out that Wainwright and Floyd had lunch together backstage in Tallahassee. They had a grand time, one opera composer from the 20th century and one from the 21st.<\/p>\n
Then it made perfect sense.<\/p>\n
“Prince of Players” tells the story of a cross-dressing actor in 17th-century England who pushes gender barriers. The actor takes advantage of high-society groupies, tricks a nobleman into thinking he’s a female prostitute, sings a bawdy barroom tune and carries on a secret love affair with a wealthy male friend.<\/p>\n
“They forgot to tell me I couldn’t write about these things,” Floyd said with sly grin.<\/p>\n
Floyd never waited for permission.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Former Arts and Entertainment Editor Mark Hinson opens gifts from his colleagues on his last day of work at the Tallahassee Democrat Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019.<\/p>\n
Mark Hinson is a former senior writer at The Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at mark.hinson59@gmail.com.<\/p>\n