Steve Schwartz wrote of Carlyle Floyd's "Susanna":

>It wasn't the fault of the production.  DeNiro would have had problems
>with that embarrassingly dated libretto, and the music is pretty bland as
>well.  I don't really understand how native Southerners could have sat in
>their seats enduring such lame stereotypes of their native ground.

Steve (and others) -- what do you then make of Floyd's "Of Mice and Men"
which was recently done by the Cleveland Opera? The story (and the
Steinbeck novella) are completely engrossing, so the stage drama works
quite well.  But I didn't see the "music" as adding anything much to the
emotional ambience or to revealing the characters.  The words, which were
perfectly understandable, even without the supertitles, were expository
prose.  There was no bite to the language or the music for such an epic
and human tragedy.  Were my wife and I alone in this view?

Eric