Susannah

Tickets for March 13 will be honored on June 20 at 7:30 PM   Tickets for March 15 will be honored on June 21 at 3:00 PM

In Carlisle Floyd’s powerful opera Susannah, a beautiful and virtuous 18-year-old girl has inadvertently incited the lust of her church elders. The church leaders accuse her of being a seductress, and the entire town turns against her. When the new pastor, Reverend Blitch, urges her to repent her alleged sins, she refuses, inflaming the reverend’s own desires – with disastrous consequences. Based on the biblical story “Susannah and the Elders,” this 1954 opera is set in rural Tenessee and is rich with Appalachian folk melodies and connections to the McCarthy era in which it was written. 

While the opera clearly connects to the McCarthy era in which it was written, its themes of men in power behaving badly and rumors trumping facts are as relevant as ever.