Carlisle Floyd

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From left: NEA Chairman Dana Gioia honoring the National Endowment for the Arts , Opera 2008: Leontyne Price , Carlisle Floyd and Richard Gaddes

Carlisle Floyd (born June 11, 1926 in Latta , South Carolina ) is an American composer . He was best known for his modern opera Susannah , which is one of the most frequently performed American musical dramas in the USA today.

Life

Carlisle Floyd was born to a wandering Methodist preacher . With this he moved through the small towns of South Carolina in his childhood and youth and left him to study at Syracuse University , where Ernst Bacon in particular took care of his musical training. In 1949 he took his master's degree here, and in 1947 he switched to the music faculty at Florida State University and stayed there until 1976. In that year he was appointed professor at the University of Houston . He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2001 .

Musical work

Floyd wrote his most famous musical drama, Susannah , at the age of 28 as his first major opera ever. The play was based on the Apocrypha of the Bible contained story of Susanna and the Elders , with Floyd the plot in a small town in Tennessee moved and the current time adapting. Before that he only had a one-act short opera. The success of the opera is explained by his age and limited experience, but above all by his undogmatic approach:

"In short, it was a vital young composer, unhindered by operatic platitudes and inspired by his material and its setting."

Susannah was at Florida State University in 1955 with Phyllis Curtin as Susannah and Mack Harrell as Olin Blitch premiered . A year later the opera was shown at the New York City Opera , again with Phyllis Curtin, this time supported by Norman Treigle . This performance won the New York Music Critics' Circle and made the young composer famous.

Shortly after the success, the musical drama Wuthering Heights , which was shown for the first time in Santa Fe in 1958 , and The Passion of Jonathan Wade , premiered in New York in 1962. Other operas were Markheim (New Orleans 1966), Of Mice and Men (Seattle 1970 , based on a model by John Steinbeck ) and Willie Stark (Houston 1981). In addition to these stage works, he wrote instrumental music and chants with orchestra and piano.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed January 14, 2019 .
  2. Jonathan Abarbanel 1994