 Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah is easily one of the most popular American operas ever. The powerful story and emotionally evocative music have made it a favorite of professional and collegiate stages alike. And yet its 1955 premiere was not at a major opera house, but rather at Florida State University. In spite of this low profile opening, Susannah won the New York Music Critics Circle Award for Best New Opera in 1956 and was performed as a representation of American culture at the 1958 World’s Fair in Belgium. Since then, it has logged hundreds of performances and shows no signs of falling out of the repertoire.
Floyd based his plot on the story of Susannah and the Elders, an ancient tale included in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles as chapter 13 of the Book of Daniel but considered apocryphal by most Protestants. In the original version, Susannah is bathing in a garden when two lustful elders approach her. They threaten to accuse her of immorality unless she sleeps with them. She refuses, and the elders follow through on their threat. Just as she is to be put to death, Daniel intervenes on her behalf, proving her innocence. The elders are executed for their deception.
In Floyd’s operatic version, the ending has been significantly changed.
 Because of its origin in the 1950s, Susannah is often linked to McCarthyism. Indeed, the story of one person being unjustly accused by a community resonates strongly with the anticommunist witch hunts of the time. And yet, Floyd places more emphasis on the hypocrisy of religion, specifically Christianity. In a 1999 interview, Floyd said: “I felt that what I had seen of so-called Christianity really had very little to do with Christianity as I understood it from the Bible. Institutionalized Christianity, that is. Sadly and regretfully, I think the same statement can be made now. When religion becomes a shield behind which we practice cruelty and persecution, then we haven’t gleaned very much from the gospels.” Floyd’s personal involvement with Christianity stemmed back to his childhood. His father was a Methodist minister, and he attended several revival meetings while growing up in South Carolina. It was this experience with revivals and itinerant preachers that gives such a sense of realism to much of Susannah.
The Act II revival scene is “the catalytic event” for the opera’s action and closely imitates the pacing and participatory nature of southern revivals. It begins with a four-part hymn sung by the choir. Like all of Floyd’s references to familiar musical styles, this hymn is newly composed, but its very familiarity conveys the setting and situation in a direct way that no other style could accomplish as effectively. This is followed by a prayer and Rev. Blitch’s sermon. The sermon uses images of hell to gradually increase the listeners’ fear so that they will accept Christianity. Another hymn is sung while some members of the congregation approach the altar to be saved. When the hymn is over, Blitch directly exhorts Susannah to “accept the savin’ grace o’ the Lamb.” She falls under the spell briefly but at the last minute screams, “No!” and runs from the church. In spite of the accurate imitation of traditional revivals, Floyd’s stage directions state: “The scene in no way should be a parody but, instead, at all times should aim at projecting the tension, effrontery and, above all, the terror implicit in the revival meeting of this nature.”
 It is not only the revival scene that echoes rural southern culture. The dialect is written into the libretto and, although it has great potential of being overdone in performance, it immediately lends a sense of place to the work. Other scenes, such as the square dance and the town supper, also help establish the social culture of the rural south. And yet, in spite of the opera’s “southern-ness,” its popularity is due to the beauty of its music and the universality of its subject. Persecution based on unjustified rumor, whether in playground cliques or the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s, is not exclusive to the operatic stage.
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