Carlisle Floyd

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Carlisle Sessions Floyd (June 11, 1926Template:SpndSeptember 30, 2021) was an American composer primarily known for his operas. These stage works, for which he wrote not only the music but also the librettos, typically engage with themes from the American South, particularly the Post-civil war South, the Great Depression and rural life. His best known opera, Susannah, is based on a story from the Biblical Apocrypha, transferred to contemporary rural Tennessee, and written for a Southern dialect. It was premiered at Florida State University in 1955, with Phyllis Curtin in the title role. When it was staged at the New York City Opera the following year, the reception was initially mixed; some considered it a masterpiece, while others degraded it as a 'folk opera'. Subsequent performances led to an increase in Susannah's reputation and the opera quickly became among the most performed of American operas.

In 1976, he became M. D. Anderson professor at the University of Houston. He co-founded the Houston Opera Studio for the training of young singers. Floyd is regarded as the "Father of American opera".<ref name="Boosey">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:TOC limit

Life and career

Youth and education

Floyd was born in Latta, South Carolina, on June 11, 1926, to Carlisle and Ida (née Fenegan) Floyd.<ref name="Huizenga">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=nytobit>Template:Cite news</ref> His father was his namesake and a Methodist minister at the local church;Template:Sfn on both sides his family was descended from among the first European immigrants to the Carolinas.<ref name="Stiller"/> He had a sister, Ermine, along with a sizable extended family.Template:Sfn Being raised in the Southern United States, Floyd would have been well aquatinted with typical Southern ideals of the time, such as Southern hospitality, extra caution to avoid offending others, Protestantism and a general disliking towards the Northerners.Template:Sfn Also prominent in his Southern upbringing were revival meetings, and the "small-town bigotry," which later influenced his work.<ref name="NYT1998">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Refn Though the family was not familiar with contemporary classical music,Template:Sfn Floyd's mother enjoyed music and poetry, often hosting family hymn singing events.Template:Sfn She also gave Floyd his first piano lessons.<ref name="Dobson">Template:Cite news</ref> Floyd attended North High School in North Carolina.Template:Sfn

Though American involvement in World War II had begun in 1941, Floyd's asthma prevented his conscription.<ref name="The Telegraph"/> He attended Converse College of Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1944, studying piano with composer Ernst Bacon.<ref name=nytobit/> In 1945 Bacon left Converse to become director of the music school at Syracuse University, New York,<ref name=nytobit/> a considerably more multicultural institution.<ref name="The Telegraph"/> Floyd followed Bacon to Syracuse and received a Bachelor of Music in 1946.<ref name=nytobit/> The following year, Floyd became part of the piano faculty at Florida State University in Tallahassee.<ref name="Dobson" /> He stayed there for thirty years, eventually becoming Professor of Composition. He received a master's degree at Syracuse in 1949.<ref name="Stiller">Template:Cite encyclopedia Template:Grove Music subscription</ref>

Emerging composer and Susannah

While at FSU, Floyd gradually became interested in composition. His first opera was Slow Dusk to his own libretto, and was produced at Syracuse in 1949. His next opera, The Fugitives, was seen at Tallahassee in 1951 but was withdrawn.<ref name="Stiller"/>

Floyd's third opera was his greatest success: Susannah. It was premiered at Florida State at the Ruby Diamond Auditorium<ref name="Dobson" /> in February 1955, with Phyllis Curtin in the title role and Mack Harrell as the Reverend Olin Blitch. The following year, the opera was given at the New York City Opera, winning him international recognition.<ref name="Boosey" /> Erich Leinsdorf conducted, with Curtin and Norman Treigle as Blitch. The opera received the New York Music Critics' Circle Award.<ref name="Boosey" /> It was selected to be America's official operatic entry at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels,<ref name="Boosey" /><ref name="Dobson" /> directed by Frank Corsaro, with Curtin, Treigle and Richard Cassilly.<ref name="Dobson" />

Further operas

Later in 1958, Floyd's Wuthering Heights (after Emily Brontë) premiered at the Santa Fe Opera, with Curtin as the heroine.<ref name="Boosey" /> In 1960, at Syracuse, his solo cantata on biblical texts, Pilgrimage, was first heard with Treigle as soloist. The Passion of Jonathan Wade, commissioned by the Ford Foundation, was Floyd's most epic opera, set in South Carolina during the Reconstruction era.<ref name="LAT">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was premiered at the New York City Opera on October 11, 1962. Theodor Uppman, Curtin, Treigle and Harry Theyard performed in a large cast, conducted by Julius Rudel and directed by Allen Fletcher.<ref name="Boosey Wade">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Floyd revised it in 1989 for performances at four major opera houses in the U.S., beginning at Houston Grand Opera.<ref name="LAT" /><ref name="Boosey Wade" />

Floyd's next opera was The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair, which was a comedy around Scottish settlers of the Carolinas. Patricia Neway and Treigle created the title roles with Rudel conducting.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The opera Markheim (after Robert Louis Stevenson) was first shown at the New Orleans Opera Association in 1966, with Treigle (to whom it was dedicated) and Audrey Schuh heading the cast. Floyd himself served as stage director.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The opera Of Mice and Men (after John Steinbeck) was commissioned by the Ford Foundation. After a long gestation period, it was premiered at the Seattle Opera in 1970, directed by Corsaro.<ref name="Boosey" /> A monodrama on the royal subject of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Flower and Hawk, premiered in Jacksonville, Florida, with Curtin directed by Corsaro. The production was also presented at Carnegie Hall.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Bilby's Doll (after Esther Forbes) was commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera where it was premiered in 1976 with Christopher Keene conducting and David Pountney directing.<ref name="Boosey" /> Floyd composed Willie Stark (after Robert Penn Warren) also for Houston, where it was first heard in 1981 in a staging by Harold Prince.<ref name="Boosey" /> After a hiatus of almost twenty years, another Floyd opera premiered in Houston in 2000, Cold Sassy Tree (after Olive Ann Burns).<ref name="Boosey" /> Patrick Summers conducted, Bruce Beresford directed, and Patricia Racette led the cast.<ref name="Huizenga" /> It was subsequently produced by several American opera houses.<ref name="Boosey" />

In 1976, he became M. D. Anderson professor at the University of Houston. There, he co-founded the Houston Opera Studio, together with David Gockley, as an institution of the University of Houston and Houston Grand Opera,<ref name="Boosey" /> with students including Michael Ching and Craig Bohmler.<ref>"Career Guide: Latest Additions & Changes" Template:Webarchive. Central Opera Service Bulletin. Vol. 22, No. 4., Winter/Spring 1981. p. 34.</ref><ref>Ching, Michael. "Carlisle Floyd". Opera and Beyond. September 28, 2011.</ref>

Retirement and later years

File:NEA Opera Honorees.jpg

Carlisle Floyd (second from right) at the National Endowment for the Arts honors in 2004, with NEA Chairman Dana Gioia (left), Leontyne Price and Richard Gaddes

After retirement from the university in Houston in 1996, Floyd lived in Tallahassee again.<ref name="Dobson" /> He had composed a Piano Sonata in the 1950s (1957, two years after Susannah) for Rudolf Firkušný, who played it at a Carnegie Hall recital, but it languished until Daniell Revenaugh recorded it in 2009 at the age of 74. Revenaugh worked with the composer in learning the piece (Floyd himself had never learned it), and their rehearsal sessions and the live recording itself were filmed for posterity. The recording was made on the Alma-Tadema Steinway that graced the White House during the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Houston Grand Opera produced a new opera by Floyd on March 5, 2016, Prince of Players, a chamber opera about the 17th-century actor, Edward Kynaston, conducted by Summers. A live recording of the premiere was nominated for a Grammy Award.<ref name="Boosey" />

Floyd died on September 30, 2021, in Tallahassee, at the age of 95.<ref name="Huizenga" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He had no children, but was survived by four nieces, the daughters of Ermine.<ref name="Dobson"/> His publisher Boosey and Hawkes, announced his death and did not relay the cause.<ref name="Huizenga" />

Music

Legacy and reputation

Floyd is primarily known for his operas, which make up the bulk of his compositional output.<ref name=nytobit/> Like Wagner and Menotti, Floyd wrote the librettos to his operas.<ref name="Stiller"/> His best-known opera,<ref name=nytobit/> Susannah, is regarded as his magnum opus.<ref name="Dobson"/> The National Public Radio's Tom Huizenga posits the work as suitable contender to be considered the archetypal "Great American Opera".<ref name="Huizenga"/>Template:Refn Patricia Racette declared that "If it is not the greatest American opera, it's certainly among the great American operas".<ref name="Huizenga"/> According to Opera News, Susannah is the most frequently performed American opera after Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors.<ref name="Dobson"/> The Daily Telegraph, however, claimed it is the most "widely performed" American opera, purportedly outnumbering some works by Mozart, Verdi and Puccini.<ref name="The Telegraph">Template:Cite news Template:Subscription required</ref> In addition to Gershwin and Menotti, Floyd stands with Adams, Barber, Bernstein, Glass and Rorem in the pantheon of preeminent 20th-century American opera composers.<ref name=nytobit/>

Selected recordings

Discography

• Susannah (Studer, Hadley, Ramey; Nagano, 1993–94) Virgin Classics
• Susannah (Curtin, Cassilly, Treigle; Andersson, 1962) [live] VAI
• Wuthering Heights (Jarman, Mentzer, Markgraf; Mechavich, 2015) [live] Reference Recordings
• Pilgrimage: excerpts (Treigle; Torkanowsky, 1971) Orion
• The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair (Neway, Treigle; Rudel, 1963) VAI
• Markheim (Schuh, Treigle; Andersson, 1966) [live] VAI
• Of Mice and Men (Futral, Griffey, Hawkins; Summers, 2002) [live] Albany Records
• Cold Sassy Tree (Racette; Summers, 2000) [live] Albany Records

Videography

• Susannah: Revival Scene (Treigle; Yestadt, Treigle, 1958) [live] Bel Canto Society
• Willie Stark (Jesse; J.Keene, McDonough, 2007) [live] Newport Classic
• Susannah (Spatafora, Webb, Donovan; Sforzini, Unger, 2014) [live] Naxos

List of compositions

Floyd's compositions were published by Boosey and Hawkes.Template:Refn

List of compositions by Carlisle Floyd<ref>Information is from Template:Harvnb unless otherwise noted.</ref>Template:Refn

Title	Year	Genre	Subject
Works for stage
Slow Dusk	1949	Musical play 1 act	–
The Fugitives	1951 (unfinished)	Unfinished stage work	–
Susannah	1955	Musical drama 2 acts	Susanna and the Elders
Wuthering Heights	1958 Template:Abbreviation 1959	Musical drama 3 acts (& prologue)	Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Passion of Jonathan Wade	1962 Template:Abbreviation 1991	Opera 3 acts	–
The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair	1963	Comic opera 1 act	–
Markheim	1966	Opera 1 act	"Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Of Mice and Men	1970	Musical drama 3 acts	Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Flower and Hawk	1972	Monodrama 1 act	–
Bilby's Doll	1976	Opera 3 acts	A Mirror for Witches by Esther Forbes
Willie Stark	1981	Opera 3 acts	All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Cold Sassy Tree	2000	Comic opera 3 acts	Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Prince of Players<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	2016	Opera 2 acts	Fictional portrayal of Edward Kynaston's life
Other works
Pilgrimage	1956	Song cycle Baritone and orchestra	Various biblical texts
Piano Sonata	1957	Solo piano	–
The Mystery	1960	Song cycle Soprano and orchestra	Text by Gabriela Mistral
Introduction, Aria, and Dance	1967	Orchestral	–
In Celebration	1971	Orchestral	–
Citizen of Paradise	1983	Song cycle Mezzo-soprano and piano	Text by Emily Dickinson
Flourishes	1987	Orchestral Fanfare	–
A Time to Dance	1994	Orchestral Baritone, chorus and orchestra	–
Soul of Heaven	1995	Song cycle Voice and piano	Text by various authors

Awards and honors

File:George W. and Laura Bush present the National Medal of Arts award to Carlisle Floyd.jpg

George W. Bush and Laura Bush present the National Medal of Arts, 2004

• 1956 Guggenheim Fellowship<ref name="Huizenga" />
• 1957 Citation of Merit from the National Association of American Conductors and Composers<ref name="Boosey"/>
• 1959 Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation Award from the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• 1964 Distinguished Professor of Florida State University Award<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• 1983 Honorary degree from Dickinson College<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• 1983 National Opera Institute's Award for Service to American Opera – the highest honor the institute bestows<ref name="Dobson" />
• 1993 Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.<ref name=Brock>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}, Retrieved March 2016</ref>

• 2001 Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters<ref name="Boosey"/>
• 2004 National Medal of Arts from the White House<ref name="Boosey" /><ref name="Huizenga" />
• 2005 Honorary Doctorate from Florida State University<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• 2008 National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honoree for lifetime work<ref name="Huizenga" />
• 2010 Anton Coppola Excellence in the Arts Award from Opera Tampa<ref>“The Fifteenth Year – Opera Tampa”. Tampa Bay Magazine. September 2009, pg 194. Retrieved February 28, 2013.</ref>
• 2012 Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Man of Music – the highest honor for a member of the American music fraternity.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

References

Sources

• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite journal

Further reading

• Template:Cite news
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite thesis
• Template:Cite thesis

External links

• {{#if:|Template:PAGENAMEBASE discography at Discogs|{{#if:Template:Wikidata|Template:Wikidata Template:PAGENAMEBASE discography at DiscogsTemplate:EditAtWikidata|Template:PAGENAMEBASE discography at Discogs}}}}
• [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 3031084

 | name/{{#if:{{#invoke:ustring|match|1=3031084|2=^nm}}
   | Template:Trim/
   | nm3031084/
   }}
 | {{#if: {{#property:P345}}
   | name/Template:First word/
   | find?q=%7B%7B%23if%3A+%0A++++++%7C+%7B%7B%7Bname%7D%7D%7D%0A++++++%7C+%5B%5B%3ATemplate%3APAGENAMEBASE%5D%5D%0A++++++%7D%7D&s=nm
   }}
 }}{{#if: 3031084  {{#property:P345}} | {{#switch: 
 | award | awards = awards Awards for | biography | bio = bio Biography for
 }}}} {{#if: 
 | {{{name}}}
 | Template:PAGENAMEBASE
 }}] at IMDb{{#if: 3031084{{#property:P345}}
 | Template:EditAtWikidata
 | Template:Main other

}}{{#switch:{{#invoke:string2|matchAny|^nm.........|^nm.......|nm|.........|source=3031084|plain=false}}

 | 1 | 3 =  Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning
 | 4 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning

}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:IMDb name with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|showblankpositional=1| 1 | 2 | id | name | section }}

• Operas we would like to see again
• Interview with Carlisle Floyd, May 4, 1991.