Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd ( born June 11, 1926 in Latta, South Carolina) is an American composer. He was known primarily for his modern opera Susannah, after George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is the second most frequently listed in the U.S. American musical drama today.

Life

Carlisle Floyd was the son of an itinerant Methodist preacher on the world. With this he moved in his childhood and youth through the small towns of South Carolina, and left him to study at Syracuse University, where especially Ernst Bacon cared for his musical education. In 1949, he put his master's degree from here, in 1947 he moved to the musical faculty of Florida State University and remained there until 1976. During the year he was appointed professor at the University of Houston.

Musical work

Floyd wrote his most famous music drama, Susannah, at the age of 28 years as his first major opera ever. The piece was based on the information contained in the Apocrypha of the Bible story of Susanna and the Elders, where Floyd moved the action to a small town in Tennessee and adapting to the current time. Previously, he had only a single short opera composed consisting of only one act. Just because of his age and his lack of experience, but above all by its non-dogmatic approach, the success of the opera is explained:

Susannah was born in 1955 premiered at the Florida State University with Phyllis Curtin as Susannah and Mack Harrell as Olin Blitch. A year later, the opera was shown in the New York City Opera, again with Phyllis Curtin, who this year received support from Norman Treigle. This performance was draftsman with the Critics 'Award at the New York Music Critics' Circle and made ​​the young composer famous.

Shortly after the success was followed by the musical drama Wuthering Heights, which in 1958 was shown in Santa Fe for the first time, as well as The Passion of Jonathan Wade, premiered in New York in 1962. More operas were Markheim (New Orleans 1966), Of Mice and Men (Seattle 1970, from a story by John Steinbeck ) and Willie Stark ( Houston 1981). Apart from these dramatic works he wrote instrumental music and songs with orchestra and with piano.