HGO premiered the comedy-drama in 2000, and Friday’s concert brought back the climax of the opera’s first act-when protagonist Rucker Lattimore, disgusted by the local busybodies’ gossip, summons his grandson and new wife to his home and holds his own church service. He returned to it in Cold Sassy Tree, the tale of a small-town shopkeeper whose neighbors are scandalized when he marries a much younger woman soon after his first wife’s death. The conflict between decency and hypocrisy, the driving force of Susannah, was a recurring theme for Floyd. The ampleness and dark shadings lof Carroll’s soprano lent Susannah’s musings a larger-than-life impact. Played with warmth and lustiness by the HGO Orchestra, led by Summers, the overture accompanied a photo montage of Floyd across the years-in settings ranging from bustling rehearsal studios to the White House, where he received the National Medal for the Arts in 2004.įloyd’s artistic spirit finally came into focus when soprano Andrea Carroll-HGO Studio alumna and Pamina in HGO’s current staging of The Magic Flute-strode onstage and launched into “Ain’t it a pretty night!” from Susannah.įrom the sweetness she gave the aria’s opening to the richness and fervor she lavished on Susannah’s vision of the big-city world beyond the mountains, Carroll captured not only the allure of Floyd’s lyricism but the innocence and goodness of Susannah herself-the naive country girl who is eventually destroyed by a lascivious preacher. The guardian angels who appear in Hansel, HGO artistic director Patrick Summers explained, harkened back to Floyd’s role as guardian and guide to the company. The concert’s only non-Floyd music was the opening work, the Overture from Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.
His influence on the opera world extended to his helping found and lead the HGO Studio training program, whose alumni include soprano Ana Maria Martinez mezzo-sopranos Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves and Jamie Barton and many other notables. The evening also heralded Floyd as a mentor. Through excerpts from Floyd’s operas and reminiscences by people who knew him, the program at Wortham Theater Center created a portrait of Floyd the composer-a champion of traditional melody, harmony and such when they were out of fashion. HGO looked back across his career on Friday with “Celebrating Carlisle Floyd”-a memorial concert to the company’s longtime ally, who died last September 30 at age 95.
#HOUSTON GRAND OPERA PAST SEASONS SERIES#
His move to the University of Houston in 1976 brought him the bonus of a new creative home: Houston Grand Opera, which staged a decades-long series of Floyd premieres and revivals, right up to the unveiling of his last opera, Prince of Players, in 2016. Photo: Melissa TaylorĬarlisle Floyd was a young faculty member at Florida State University when his Susannah made him an operatic sensation in the mid-1950s. Andrea Carroll performed “Ain’t it a pretty night!” from Susannah at Houston Grand Opera’s tribute to composer Carlisle Floyd Friday night.
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