Floyd's Of mice and men

[Sean]

Similar to the likes of Menotti and half way to the Sondheim musical, this has occassional vigorous development but overall a bit faded and indulgent.

[malc19ken]

Would love to hear this opera. I have 'Susannah,' 'Cold Sassy Tree' and 'Wuthering Heights' and would really like to hear the rest of the Floyd oeuvre.

[False_Dmitry]

I'm rather a fan of Menotti (and Barber, and Robert Ward, and Douglas Moore & Co) and I think they've been unfairly "punished" for "failing" to write fashionably atonal music. 

I haven't heard OF MICE & MEN, but I think Floyd is an accomplished composer with a good sense of theatrical music - I would be interested in seeing how this worked on stage. 

[Franco]

Carlisle Floyd is a very good opera composer (IMO), really one of the few Americans who has made opera his focus and doing so with success.  I think he's written something two dozen works. 

Of Mice and Men, arguably his best, is one of his later works and is frequently performed although not nearly as often as Susannah.  There is at least one recording I know of.

If there were a box set containing all his operas I would jump on it, but alas, all of them have not been recorded even individually.

[Guido]

Are the other operas really as good as Susannah... I like Susannah but mainly for the famous 2 arias... the rest seem cheap and artificial to me... maybe I should give of Mice and Men a try.

And lets not group Barber in with Menotti and Floyd please! Barber is a composer of real stature, whereas the other two are men of the theatre (and do that side of it very well) and only minor figures in composing terms. The fact that all are tonal is about where the similarities end.

[Franco]

You write,

"And lets not group Barber in with Menotti and Floyd please! Barber is a composer of real stature, whereas the other two are men of the theater (and do that side of it very well) and only minor figures in composing terms."

I would argue that writing for the theater, which you admit Floyd and Menotti do very well, in no way cheapens their standing as composers.  You seem to think writing opera is easier than writing instrumental music, but that is clearly not the case otherwise Wagner would be consider a second tier composer.  There are some composers who worked almost exclusively in the theater, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner - and others who wrote no operas or one, to say they did it, and these are usually not their best work - few, Britten comes to mind, excelled in both theater and instrumental music.  It takes a very special talent to understand writing for the theater and is not something to sneer at.

To answer your first question IMO Mice is better than Susannah, but that is neither here not there.

[False_Dmitry]

And lets not group Barber in with Menotti and Floyd please! Barber is a composer of real stature, whereas the other two are men of the theatre

I rather agree with Franco here   It's fashionable to knock Menotti as "old hat", but in fact his theatre works have stood the test of time, and established conductors have championed them...  notably Hickox's recording of THE CONSUL with Sue Bullock.  This shows Menotti to be the equal of Barber in the theatre.  Barber paid the price for writing tonal music when it wasn't fashionable to do so.  It's his centenary this year, but not even VANESSA has been programmed anywhere other than semi-professional opera theatres, if at all.  Menotti's greatest work remains THE MEDIUM - which suffers from semi-professional & student hammed-up performances - whereas in fact it's the final flowering of verismo schlock,  written strongly under the influence of the film noir movies at which the young immigrant Menotti probably learned English?

Now, talking of hardboiled heroines...how about THE BALLAD OF BABY DOE, anyone?


Joan Crawford in JOHNNY GUITAR.  I couldn't find a picture of her with the gun at the end of MILDRED PIERCE...  a movie which predated THE MEDIUM by a year, about an obsessive mother who stops at nothing for her daughter's happiness...

[Guido]

You write, I would argue that writing for the theater, which you admit Floyd and Menotti do very well, in no way cheapens their standing as composers.  You seem to think writing opera is easier than writing instrumental music, but that is clearly not the case otherwise Wagner would be consider a second tier composer.  There are some composers who worked almost exclusively in the theater, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner - and others who wrote no operas or one, to say they did it, and these are usually not their best work - few, Britten comes to mind, excelled in both theater and instrumental music.  It takes a very special talent to understand writing for the theater and is not something to sneer at.

To answer your first question IMO Mice is better than Susannah, but that is neither here not there.

Oh no, you misread me completely. By men of the theatre I mean they understand the medium very well and know what does and doesn't work in the theatre dramatically - this is why their operas are produced. However, and this is a separate issue, their music is second rate. Wagner combines great theatre with great music and is obviously one of the greatest of all composers. Arguably, Barber's dramatic sense is not as well developed as that of Menotti and Floyd - but his music is greater by far than these two. I think there's probably nothing so challenging as writing an opera.