Sarasota Opera is performing four operas: Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah” on Thursday and Sunday; Giuseppe Verdi’s “Il Travotore” on Saturday; Giacomo Puccini’s “La boheme” on Friday; and Franz Lehar’s “The Merry Widow” on Saturday. All performances take place in the historic Sarasota Opera House.
MORE INFORMATION:
Susannah
“Susannah” is considered Carlisle Floyd’s masterpiece.
It one of America’s most enduring and frequently performed operas.
Sarasota Opera’s performance of “Susannah” honors the 100th anniversary of Carlisle Floyd's birth and in the state of its premiere.
Written during the McCarthy era, “Susannah” is loosely based on the biblical tale from the Apocrypha of "Susannah and the Elders," but Floyd puts it into an updated American context; Susannah is a young and innocent woman of humble origins in a small mountain town in Tennessee who is falsely targeted as a sinner. The resulting raw, intense work explores themes of religious hypocrisy, isolation, and loss of innocence.
Floyd wrote both the music and the libretto, bringing to life a world he knew intimately from his youth. His father was a Methodist minister and Floyd rebelled against what he felt was religion's oppressive control.
"I hated revival meetings as a child,” he said. “They were frightening. It was a mass coercion of people. It's fascism; it's very offensive and angering; it's the imposing of one's moral code on others."
In creating the opera, Floyd says he drew inspiration from a creative writing teacher in college who advised to "write what you know." The libretto, which he completed in 10 days, is a taut, intense drama that would stand on its own as a theater piece.
The story and characters are all brought to life in the natural dialect and speech rhythms of the American south. To this he added music of exceptional beauty and variety. His score is renowned for its melodic accessibility and directness, blending American folk melodies, traditional folk hymns and powerful operatic drama which perfectly depicts the moods and tension of this Tennessee setting.
Carlisle Floyd described his compositional style in “Susannah” as an effort to create an accessible American opera, combining traditional classical forms with American vernacular music to "redress the balance" of drama and music. His hope was that the opera would be widely accessible.
"I felt that there was a large audience in this country who had never gone inside an opera house,” he said. “I wanted to write an opera that would seem comfortable for that audience, if we could get them inside."
The longevity and popularity of this American work attests that he was successful.
Though a young and relatively inexperienced composer when writing “Susannah,” with its premiere he burst on the scene to immediate success.
The opera was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award for Best New Opera in 1956 and was chosen to represent American music and culture at the World's Fair in Brussels in 1958.
The Merry Widow
Soprano Raquel González stars in Sarasota Opera House’s production of “The Merry Widow.” The operetta explores themes of love, loyalty, and the comedic chaos that ensues when societal expectations clash with personal desires. The story revolves around wealthy widow Hanna Glawari, who ruefully finds herself besieged by suitors as her year of mourning comes to an end. To their chagrin, Hanna’s choices narrow when her past paramour arrives on the scene.
Franz Lehar wrote the music and Viktor Leon and Leo Stein the libretto for “The Merry Widow.”
Set in and around the Parisian Embassy of Pontevedro, a mythical Balkan country, “The Merry Widow” has a score that sparkles with wit and melody from beginning to end. Three of its highlights in particular are as famous and well-loved as any moments in the history of the genre: Hanna's "Vilja," Danilo's entrance song, "Maxim's," and of course, "The Merry Widow Waltz."
The operetta had its world premiere December 30, 1905, in Vienna.
Its first performance in London in 1907 was one of the greatest theatrical triumphs that city has ever witnessed.
The American premiere in the same year at New York's New Amsterdam theatre was such a sensation that it led to the creation of Merry Widow hats, corsets, cigarettes, trains and cocktails.
The Paris premiere in 1909 continued the "Widow's" triumphant path around the world.
The work has been translated into more than 25 languages.
“The Merry Widow” received three Hollywood adaptations. The first, in 1925, starred Mae Murray and John Gilbert. The next was in 1934. With new lyrics by Lorenz Hart, it featured Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier. The most recent film was in 1952, pairing Lana Turner with Fernando Lamas.
Franz Lehár sustained his fame and success for 30 years following the premiere of the “The Merry Widow.” Subsequent works included “The Land of Smiles,” “The Count of Luxembourg,” “The Czarevitch” and “Giuditta.”
'The Merry Widow' will be performed at the Sarasota Opera House on select dates through March 27.
Visit https://www.sarasotaopera.org/event/merry-widow for more on “The Merry Widow” cast and creative team.
For more from WGCU, visit “’The Merry Widow’ and ‘La boheme’ are onstage this week at the Sarasota Opera House.”
La bohème
“La bohème” is Giacomo Puccini's most beloved opera. It takes place in the streets of the Latin Quarter in 19th century Paris, where a poor embroideress, Mimì, has a fateful chance encounter with the poet Rodolfo. Laughter and tears ensue as a group of friends struggle through and celebrate the Bohemian lifestyle and experience the heartbreak of a lover's impending demise.
The world premiere of La bohème took place at Turin's Teatro Regio on Feb. 1, 1896. La bohème received a favorable reception by the audience, but the critics panned the opera because of its conversational style and jarring mixture of lighthearted and sentimental scenes in often conversational style. They also castigated Puccini for some of his harmonic touches. In spite of these criticisms, “La bohème” played to 24 sold-out houses during its first month.
After Puccini and his librettists made several tweaks, the opera achieved immortality with a production in Palermo, Sicily, in April 1897, and its fame spread throughout the Italian peninsula. Performances of La bohème are today the backbone of operatic seasons around the globe.
Sarasota Opera has presented many productions of Puccini's works at the Opera House. These include “Madama Butterfly” in 1986, 1994, 2007, 2011, 2017, and 2023; “Il tabarro” in 1987; "Tosca" in 1988, 2004, 2009, 2015, 2022; “La fanciulla del West” in 1993; La rondine in 1999 and 2008; “Turandot” in 2013 and 2019; and a production of the composer's complete “Il trittico” (consisting of the three one-act operas "Il tabarro," "Suor Angelica," and "Gianni Schicchi") in 1996. Sarasota Opera last produced “La bohème” in 2020.
“La boheme” will be performed at the Sarasota Opera House on select dates through March 28.
Il Trovatore
One of Verdi's most popular works, “Il Trovatore” unfolds with the telling of a fiery execution that takes place during Count de Luna's childhood, an event that sets him in vengeful pursuit of the gypsy woman, Azucena. Unrequited love for the noblewoman Leonora and hatred for her lover, the troubadour Manrico, drive him to murderous passions. The story comes full circle, ending with another tragic execution, in this sprawling medieval melodrama.
Between 1840 and 1853, Giuseppe Verdi was remarkably prolific, composing nearly one opera per year during what he called his "years in the galley." This intense period of labor brought him both artistic acclaim and financial success. The final three operas of this era – “Rigoletto” (1851), “Il Trovatore” (1853), and “La Traviata” (1853) — cemented his status as the most performed composer in the world.
“Il Trovatore” premiered in Rome in January 1853 and was a triumph. It quickly made the rounds of the European theaters, with first performances in New York and London in 1855.
“’Il Trovatore's’ music has captured the opera lover's imagination,” writes Richard Russell. “The score is rich with moments that challenge even the best operatic voices, making the achievement of surmounting these obstacles even more exciting to audiences. Tenors dread and enthusiasts clamor for the extraneous but now mostly obligatory high C in ‘Di quella pira’ The other roles offer similar challenges to even the most accomplished artists. Caruso once claimed that to produce ‘Il Trovatore’ you needed ‘the four greatest singers in the world.’"
During Verdi's lifetime “Il Trovatore” was the most popular of his works. Writing to a friend, Verdi said that "in the heart of Africa or the Indies you will always hear Trovatore."
“Il Trovatore" will be performed at the Sarasota Opera House on select dates through March 29.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
