I attended the Washington Opera's performance of Massenet's *Le Cid* on
Saturday night.  Popular when it first appeared as an operatic setting to
Corneille's drama, known apparently to every French school child, it has
not been performed that much recently, last having appeared at the Paris
opera in 1919.  Kobbe's opera book doesn't even mention it.

Placido Domingo sang Rodrigue ("Le Cid"); Elisabete Matos, Chimene; Angela
Turner Wilson, The Infanta; William Parcher, Le Comte de Gormas; Hao Jiang
Tian, Don Diegue; and Kimm Julian, the King of Spain.  Emmanuel Villaume
conducted.

There was lots of spectacle, w/ well choreographed crowd scenes,
interesting orchestral music, some good solo and ensemble singing (how's
that for sounding presumptuous?), and after I'd cheered the performers at
the opera's end I wondered if I wouldn't have been happier w/ the money I
spent on the prime orchestra seat than w/ the memory of having attended
the performance.

Like so many operas, including those whose music I find more memorable,
the story here left much to be desired.  This is an opera w/ a "happy
ending" and there is never really any doubt about the plot's resolution.
Rodrigue will indeed return triumphant from the battle against the Moors
(into which he ventures to expiate his having killed his beloved's father)
because Saint James (St. Jacques) tells him so in a vision before the
battle commences.  And Chimene will indeed forgive Rodrigue, her intended,
for having slain her father in a duel after he had insulted Rodrigue's
father, when he returns from battle in triumph.

Then I realized that for a French audience, that doubtless knew this story
backwards and forwards from their familiarity w/ Corneille's play, the
story was secondary.  What was really involved was attempting to provide
a musical, operatic, setting to a drama about conflicting claims of duty.

Like God, who for no explained reason, preferred Abel's offering over
that of Cain, the King bestows an honor upon Rodrigue's father, Diegue,
rather than upon Chimene's father, Gormas, who had believed himself in line
for it.  Although one would think that, having, like Diegue, given his
blessing to the union of their respective children, Gormas would get over
the perceived slight, which after all was no fault of the beneficiary, he
insultingly humiliates Diegue, leaving Rodrigue caught between conflicting
claims of a duty to vindicate his father's honor and to respect the beloved
father of his beloved.  He chooses the former and kills Gormas in a duel.
Chimene is now caught between her continuing love for Rodrigue and her duty
to seek retribution against that same lover for having slain her father.
I suspect the original drama eloquently presents these conflicting claims
and Massenet sought to set this to music.  I also suspect that Massenet did
not come nearly as close to doing musical justice to a revered playwright's
profound drama, as Verdi, for instance, did in the case of Shakespeare's
Otello.

Then, this evening, I attended a Washington Opera performance of Carlisle
Floyd's *Susannah*.  The cast included Mary Mills as Susannah Polk; Richard
Brunner as her brother, Sam; Jeffrey Wells as the Reverend Olin Blitch, and
Beau Palmer as Little Bat McLean.  John Demain conducted.

If I had to attend one of these two operas again tomorrow, I'd have no
problem deciding upon *Susannah*.

I thought the singing, especially that of Mary Mills (whom I had heard in
*Cunning Little Vixen*, *Carmen*, and *Dangerous Liaisons*), excellent.  I
liked the music ("Ain't it a pretty night", "The Jaybird Song", "Short on
lovin' kindness", "The trees on the mountain are cold and bare", and the
various orchestral motivs).  The square dance theme sound just like the
opening to a Bach partita for solo violin, but, according to the conductor,
who presented an "Opera Insights" lecture prior to the opera, the semblance
is coincidental.

The Washington Opera Magazine states that *Susannah* is the most frequently
performed of all full-length American operas.  I find that hard to believe,
if *Porgy and Bess* is considered an American opera, as it should be.  But
then the magazine also stated that the story of the opera is based upon the
13th chapter of the Book of Daniel, and there is no 13th chapter of that
book!

The tale takes place at an unspecified time in East Tennessee (New Hope
Valley), in an isolated rural community, where the orphaned 18-year old
Susannah lives w/ her brother, Sam, who drinks occasionally.  Partly
because of this, and partly because she is far and away prettier than any
other female in town, she's perceived as evil, sinful, and possessed of the
Devil, all of which is imparted to the newly arrived itinerant preacher,
Blitch, who seeks to "save" her.  He dances w/ her at the church social.
(Yes the church condones dancing, even "closed" dancing and not simply
square dancing.) Blitch needs an appropriate creek in which to baptize
those who want to be saved and the elders of the church seek to find one,
and do so, alas, also spying Susannah bathing in it, naked.  Her reputation
isn't helped any when "Little Bat" the slightly retarded son of one of
the elders, who spends much time w/ Susannah, succumbs to the insistent
suggestions of his parents and the preacher and accuses Susannah of having
let him "love her up".  She's ostracized from the congregation, attends a
"meetin'" in desperation thinking she might "repent" although feeling she
has nothing to repent, shrinks away from repenting a lie and runs out of
the church.  (The congregation, incidentally was integrated but I suspect
that this was simply "color blind" casting.) Blitch visits her that night
while Sam is away, praises her beautiful singing, seeks again to get her
to repent, and after he is repulsed, confesses to her his own loneliness.
Emotionally worn down, she lets him into the empty house where, as she
later explains to the returning Sam, the worst that he could imagine took
place.  Blitch now realizing that he has deflowered a virgin, is himself
penitent, although not to the point of publicly admitting his surrender to
temptation.  He tries, however, to convince the congregation of Susannah's
innocence, claiming that he had been so advised by an apparition from God.
The congregation won't believe him.  Sam shoots Blitch at a mass baptism
and maybe makes a getaway.  (We're not told.)

The congregation gathers in front of Susannah's house and tells her to
leave town and that they'll hang her brother if they catch him.  She stands
off the crowd w/ a rifle.  They disperse, except for Little Bat, whom she
entices to come near her to "love her up" and when he does, she slaps him
to the ground.  The end.

Some of the scenes are tender and touching, like those of Susannah and her
brother.  Some of the scenes are dramatic and rousing like the scene at
the "meetin'" where Blitch is exhorting the congregation to repent, save
themselves from hellfire (and put bills rather than coins into the
collection basket), and the scenes that follow.

I don't know many American operas, although I've attended a few.  Of those
I know, I'd put *Porgy and Bess* clearly at the top. *Susannah* might be
up there, w/ *Vanessa*, as a runner up.

Walter Meyer