Saturday, 21 January 2017

Susannah

You might wonder while I'm writing about a specific person, but in fact I'm not. I don't anyone called Susannah, although I've come across a few Susans in my time. Dot and I went to the opera last night - a live performance of Carlisle Floyd's opera 'Susannah' in the Michael Hoskins Creative Arts Centre at 'The Armidale School' (or TAS for short). I bet that not many schools in the world have a theatre with tiered seating and side balconies accommodating maybe a few hundred people, a large stage capable of hosting just about any opera ever written, an orchestra pit and superb lighting.

I might have to retract the bit about hosting any opera because it occurs to me that the final scene of Wagner's Gotterdammerung (excuse the absence of umlauts on my keyboard) would be difficult. At this point Brunnhilde lights a funeral pyre for the dead Siegfried, mounts her horse, leaps on it into the flames and is consumed by the fire, at which point the Rhine floods its banks and the opera's villain, Hagen, is drowned, the assembled gods in Valhalla are consumed by fire, and the naked Rhinemaidens reclaim their ring. Some conclusion for a series of 4 end-on operas lasting about 16 hours.

Written in the early 50s - in America's McCarthy era - Susannah is about life and religion in a small southern community and how an attractive young girl, Susannah, finds difficulty in adapting to the conservative norms of her surroundings. It ends when an itinerant pastor is shot and, in effect, she cuts her ties with her community. The pastor, by the way, had just raped her! These themes might not be everyone's cup of tea, but the singing was good, the staging was first class - even down to pouring rain from a thunderstorm on stage (yes, the stage got wet), the sense of occasion, and meeting up with quite a lot of friends made it a memorable evening.

More amazing was that, apart from a few lead singers, all the cast on stage, the orchestra and conductor, the production team, and the caterers (we had nice canapes and wine) were locals. There can't be many towns of 25,000 people who could stage such an offering. And fortunately, unlike Europe and other places, we didn't have to dress up. I arrived in my usual shorts and T-shirt, albeit having the confederate flag printed on the front. This possibly made me the most appropriately dressed person in the audience!

Alas, I have no pictures. Photography was banned. But Google 'Carlisle Floyd Susannah' and you'll find more about the plot, be able to listen to selected arias, and so on.

AS

No comments: