Patrick
Summers
Talks About Carlisle
Floyd and American Opera
By Robert
Wilder Blue
Conductor Patrick Summers has been
a champion of American opera throughout his career. As Music Director at Houston
Grand Opera and Principal Guest Conductor for San
Francisco Opera, and a frequent guest conductor around the United States,
he has conducted performances of numerous American works. Most recently, he
led acclaimed world premiere performances of Andre Previn's A Streetcar
Named Desire, Mark Adamo's Little Women and Jake Heggie's Dead
Man Walking. But, it is Carlisle Floyd to whom
Summers has had one of his strongest connections.
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Photo
by George Hixson
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"I have admired Carlisle
my entire adult life. I believe that Susannah was the first full-length
opera I ever saw, first in Cincinnati and then at Indiana University when
I was very young, long before I was a student there. At that time, he had
achieved 'mythical figure' status to me. When I was appointed music director
in Houston, one of the very first projects I began to work on was HGO's commission
of Cold Sassy Tree. I worked closely with Carlisle over the course
of a number of years preparing it.
"That process is always fascinating -- conducting a composer's work and
getting ideas right from his head -- because there is only so much in music
you can write down. The interesting thing about Carlisle is that, for him,
composing is a process of elimination. He has so many ideas; he is an absolute
wealth of melodic invention. He told me that a full hour of Susannah
was cut in the original production. Cold Sassy Tree could have been
a Ring Cycle-length opera as far as Carlisle was concerned. He had the ability
to focus on anything and the ideas were just endless. But, once we were into
rehearsal, it was a process of paring it back to decide what story he was
going to tell. In the end, there was not anything in
Cold Sassy Tree
that didn't need to be there.
"Carlisle always had a musical solution to any dramatic problem. In the
original production, we had difficulty moving a particular set. I told him
(as I had also had to tell Andre Previn in A Streetcar Named Desire),
'I hate to do this to you because we are in our final weeks, but we need 45
seconds of music here.' Someone who isn't involved in creating a piece might
think that is terribly cold. How could you tell Verdi you needed 45 more seconds?
But, in actuality, composers love the challenge. Carlisle went away overnight
and came back with an orchestrated insert for the scene change that was exactly
45 seconds long, and it worked. It sounded absolutely organic. You would never
be able to tell me where it was in the score if I didn't show you. Composers
are the most gifted people in music.
"Carlisle is an incredible admirer of Verdi, which is something you can
see in his sense of architecture. None of his music sounds like Verdi, certainly;
Carlisle is too unique a voice to copy anybody. He writes the most American
music around -- unashamedly and brilliantly. Cold Sassy Tree is an
incredibly beautiful, funny and touching work. It is his Falstaff."
Carlisle Floyd's operas have been performed regularly around the United States,
most notably in Houston, San
Diego and at New York City Opera,
as well as by many smaller regional opera companies. But until recently, they
have not been presented in the larger international houses. "Carlisle's
music has familiarity and acceptability, combined with an incredible ability
to touch the common man, just as Aaron Copland's music did. Unfortunately,
there is an inherent distrust of that among the music intelligentsia.
"For me, it takes the whole range of compositional process to properly
illustrate who we are now as a country and as a society. The incredibly avant-garde
and experimental is fantastic; it is necessary to present those pieces that
push the limits of the art form and move us forward. But, it is just as valid
to have these compositional voices that speak to who we are right now, in
a simple, direct and honest way. Both styles are valid, and everything of
quality in between them is valid. Each is important because of the existence
of the other. Schoenberg was a much better composer because of the presence
of Rachmaninoff in the world at the same time.
" Wozzeck is almost 80 years old and it sounds melodic to most
musicians now. The average audience member perhaps still has a difficult time
with Wozzeck; but, it falls much easier on the ear now than in the
past or at its world premiere and is an undeniably staggering piece of musical
theater. At the same time Wozzeck was written, there were other pieces
that were easier for the audience -- that allowed them to absorb Wozzeck
easier. Wozzeck wasn't the only thing. That is why I get very annoyed
at those who think all new music and all new operas must be of the most avant-garde
variety. Remember how Puccini was maligned when he wrote his early operas?
"It is this one-palette idea about new music, that you get a lot of in
the press, that is very disconcerting, and it is diminishing to everyone who
writes music. Let the whole palette of composers speak. There will be the
very avant-garde and the forward-looking. And there will be the right-here-and-now
-- the people who take existing musical elements and use them in a new and
exciting way. To say that the only great modern opera will not be written
in a musical language we have now mastered, as one critic said in response
to Dead Man Walking, is a really amazing statement to me. It is like
saying that the next great novel will not be written in a language you will
understand. To say that it is not the idea and the skill with which a story
is told or a musical composition is written, but the actual language itself,
is really ridiculous and elitist beyond belief. When people go to the opera,
I want them to have a delightful evening one time, and another, I want them
to have their thoughts provoked, and another, to be challenged and perhaps
not even like it very much.
"That is why I think Carlisle's operas are so great. Cold Sassy Tree
is a brilliant score from beginning to end. Does it advance the art form?
Someone has to properly define that for me in order for me to answer that
question. Cold Sassy Tree is a deeply moving, funny piece. Anything
that does that advances the art form."
In 1999, more than 40 years after its premiere, Floyd's most well-known opera,
Susannah, made it to the Metropolitan Opera. "Susannah
packs a wallop! However, I doubt that the Met would have programmed it without
the efforts of Renée Fleming; it was important to her to sing an American
opera at America's greatest opera house. And, as in Verdi's and Rossini's
time, it often takes stars to plead the cases of these operas. It took Porgy
and Bess nearly 50 years to get to the Metropolitan. The New York Times
review of Susannah said that the whole thing would fit into the third
act of Parsifal. Well, that is a catchy little phrase and we all remember
it; but, what in the world does that have to do with the quality of Susannah?
All of Bohème would fit into the last act of
Die Meistersinger
but that does not make either one a better piece. It doesn't have anything
to do with it."
A common complaint about opera in English, whether written in English originally
or translated from another language, is the inability to understand the words
when they are being sung. Over the past decade or so, however, there have
appeared many singers who are comfortable singing in English. "The 'understandability'
of the text has more to do with the composer than the singer. In general,
it is the way the text is set. It is difficult to be understood if two syllables
of a word are an octave and a half apart, which happens a lot. If a composer
writes that for effect it is one thing. Although, it diminishes the ability
of the singer to be understood. It is a trade-off.
"You have to coach and coax singers to sing in American English since
there is still a lot of cultural 'cringe' about it. Carlisle will tell you
that, in the rehearsal process, a huge amount of time is spent on this. You
cannot imagine how many singers do not want to sing the Appalachian dialect
in Susannah. I have to tell singers constantly not to roll the 'r's.'"
(He demonstrates: 'You'rrrrrrrrre rrrrrrright.') It sounds absolutely laughable.
Finally though, now, there are American singers who are at the top of the
field all over the world and who are much less ashamed of the American vernacular.
They are capable of singing proudly in American English. But, it is hard work:
once, I had a singer in a concert who insisted on singing 'Bess, you are my
woman now.'
"Composers work very hard at text-setting. Cold Sassy Tree is
a miracle in that regard -- the text setting is incredible. It has all of
Carlisle's usual musical elements -- leaps and jumps; but, they are done in
such a way that you can understand the text. Jake [Heggie] has written a lot
of songs and has a natural ability to set English; he does it really well.
Sometimes the different stresses of the text are important, though. The setting
of the text of Nixon in China is exactly what gives it its punch. Carmen
is absolutely filled, cover-to-cover, with words that are set opposite of
their expected accents; any French speaker will tell you that. It was a 19th
century sensibility that composers like John Adams have revived, thankfully.
"We live in a very literal age now; several generations have grown up
on the movies and think that the movies are real. They see a movie about Nixon
that fictionalizes aspects of his life and suddenly it is an affront to the
memory of the man, instead of just a movie. It is a really incredible turn.
In earlier centuries, it was not considered that a piece of theater had to
be 'real.' Caesar's life certainly did not transpire as it did in the Shakespeare
play. And what about those Donizetti operas that have queens of England meeting
each other when they did not even live at the same time?!"
Speaking of Cold Sassy Tree, Carlisle Floyd said that after the cast
was chosen, he did not meet them again until rehearsals started. "He
does not write for singers, he writes for characters. There are varied aesthetics
on that issue; Jake said many times that it greatly enhanced his compositional
process to know who he was writing for. Andre undoubtedly was affected in
his composition of Streetcar by being in love with Renée's voice;
and, there is a place for that in the compositional process. But, Carlisle
has always said that he does not write for particular voices, he writes for
characters and the singer has to fit the character. Wagner certainly did that
-- he did not write to show off particular talents. But, Mozart did, absolutely.
He said he could write an aria to fit someone like a tailor fitting him for
a coat. I always remember a story that Richard Rodgers told about offering
Mary Martin the leading role in Oklahoma. After the success of Oklahoma,
Rodgers sent Martin a dozen roses with a note thanking her for turning it
down, saying, 'If you had taken it, I would have written a star part for you.
Because you didn't, I just wrote the show.' It is an interesting point. Certainly
in the Broadway sphere, star-vehicles have not lasted at all. Carlisle has
a very important point there and I think he is right, possibly. Any singer
you ask will disagree, of course."
So, what makes Cold Sassy Tree good? "It is honest. It does not
try to be anything other than what it is, which is an incredibly original,
moving, funny story of two people and a town a century ago. Carlisle tells
it with absolute clarity and humor and sincerity. The end of the second act
is so moving and beautiful, it struck everyone in the audience.
"All of the new pieces I have been involved with have been different.
Tod Machover's, Resurrection, which we did in Houston in 1999, is an
incredibly complex piece. It is in a musical language that is much more complex
than anything written up to that point and it was a challenge for the audience.
It is an incredibly important score and it is brilliant. Little Women,
by Mark Adamo, which we also did in Houston, was a big success. It was honest,
direct, moving and unique.
"These people who are composing for the theater now have an immense amount
to say. And that is the way we honor this tradition of opera that we are a
part of. We all love the same twenty operas that the public keeps wanting.
That is the reason we are in this business. We all love Traviata, Bohème,
Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro - they are some of the greatest
works of art ever written. But, we only honor them properly by producing works
of our own time that say who we are. If a larger percentage of time in opera
houses were about new music, then La Bohème would not come around
so often; it would be presented every ten years instead of every two years.
Then, Bohème itself would be an event, as it should be. Bohème
is a superb piece of music and a great night in the theater. Let us honor
that tradition by giving our living composers the chance."
Will we ever arrive at a point when opera companies in the United States regularly
present American operas? "Cold Sassy Tree was Houston Grand Opera's
25th premiere in as many years. We would be in a very different place in American
opera today if ten theaters could say that, instead of just one, and that
is the challenge I would like to throw out to other companies. I saw William
Bolcom's brilliant A View From the Bridge in Chicago last season; it
was an absolutely fantastic opera and it was performed wonderfully. The houses
were sold out - they were scalping tickets. It was the same in San Francisco
for Dead Man Walking.
"The tide is turning; it is allowing for a process. Learning to compose
takes a long time and few get it right the first time. It was interesting
that I was conducting Nabucco in Houston at the same time as Cold
Sassy Tree. Nabucco was Verdi's third opera but only his
first success. His first two operas were dismal failures. Critics wrote, 'Do
not ever write another note of music again. You do not have any talent.' Yet,
he got a commission for Nabucco. Now how many impresarios today would
commission a composer who had two failures? Without which we wouldn't have
had Verdi! So, let there be a process."
Read more
on Patrick Summers
USOperaWeb
interview - January 2002
