Listen to Susannah

Nothing quite compares to the excitement of hearing the biggest stars in the opera world performing with a full orchestra and chorus in front of a live audience. Now you can experience the magnificent sound of full-scale opera free, whenever you like, with Lyric Audio Streaming.

Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah was a triumph at Lyric's 1993 company premiere. The opera is a musically glorious and dramatically riveting modern treatment of an Apocryphal tale (“Susannah and the Elders”). In an ultra-conservative village – New Hope Valley, Tennessee – an innocent young woman is castigated by the elders of the community for bathing naked in a mountain stream. Olin Blitch, an itinerant preacher visiting the village, is drawn to Susannah and seduces her, with catastrophic consequences. Susannah’s exquisite arias and Blitch’s revival-meeting scene are just some of the memorable highlights in one of the greatest operatic scores in the history of American opera.

 

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Lin Jarvis
Square Dance Caller 

Emily Magee
Mrs. Gleaton 

Elizabeth Koch
Mrs. Hayes

Jean Kraft
Mrs. McLean 

Eleni Matos
Mrs. Ott 

Philip Kraus
Elder McLean 

Samuel Ramey
Olin Blitch 

Peter Blanchet
Elder Hayes 

Wilbur Pauley
Elder Ott 

William Watson
Elder Gleaton 

Renée Fleming
Susannah 

Richard Markley
Little Bat 

Michael Myers
Sam

Jeffrey Taylor
First Man 

Stephen Powell
Second Man 

Lesley Koenig
Stage Director 

George Manahan
Conductor 

Robert Falls
Stage Director 

Michael Yeargan
Designer

Duane Schuler
Lighting Designer 

Donald Palumbo
Chorus Master 

Stan Dufford
Wig and Makeup Designer 

The Abbott Laboratories production.
Co-production of Lyric Opera of Chicago and Houston Grand Opera.

Photo: Dan Rest