Carlisle Sessions Floyd was an American composer primarily known for his operas. These stage works, for which he wrote the librettos, typically engage with themes from the American South, particularly the Post-civil war South, the Great Depression and rural life. His best known opera, Susannah, is based on a story from the Biblical Apocrypha, transferred to contemporary rural Tennessee, and written for a Southern dialect. It was premiered at Florida State University in 1955, with Phyllis Curtin in the title role. When it was staged at the New York City Opera the following year, the reception was initially mixed; some considered it a masterpiece, while others degraded it as a 'folk opera'. Subsequent performances led to an increase in Susannah's reputation and the opera quickly became among the most performed of American operas.
The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013, and again since 2016 when it was revived.
Phyllis Curtin was an American soprano and academic teacher who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She is known for her creation of roles in operas by Carlisle Floyd, such as the title role in Susannah and Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights. She was a dedicated song recitalist, who retired from singing in 1984. She was named Boston University's Dean Emerita, College of Fine Arts in 1991.
Stephen Douglass was an American actor-singer.
Patricia Neway was an American operatic soprano and musical theatre actress who had an active international career during the mid-1940s through the 1970s. One of the few performers of her day to enjoy equal success on both the opera and musical theatre stages, she was a regular performer on both Broadway and at the New York City Opera during the 1950s and 1960s.
Norman Treigle (né Adanelle Wilfred Treigle was an American operatic bass-baritone, who was acclaimed for his great abilities as a singing-actor, and specialized in roles that evoked villainy and terror.
Opera has long been part of the musical culture of New Orleans, Louisiana. Operas have regularly been performed in the city since the 1790s, and since the early 19th century, New Orleans has had a resident company regularly performing opera in addition to theaters hosting traveling performers and companies.
Harry Theyard is an American operatic tenor.
Richard Cassilly was an American operatic tenor who had a major international opera career between 1954–90. Cassilly "was a mainstay in the heldentenor repertory in opera houses around the world for 30 years", and particularly excelled in Wagnerian roles like Tristan, Siegmund and Tannhäuser, and in dramatic parts that required both stamina and vocal weight, such as Giuseppe Verdi's Otello and Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson.
Tulsa Opera is an American opera company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Frank Corsaro was one of America's foremost stage directors of opera and theatre. His Broadway productions include The Night of the Iguana (1961).
Joy Clements was an American lyric coloratura soprano who had a substantial opera and concert career from 1956 through the late 1970s. She notably sang regularly with both the New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera during the 1960s through the early 1970s. She also traveled regularly for performances with opera companies and orchestras throughout the United States but only appeared in a relatively few number of performances internationally.
William Chapman was an American operatic baritone and stage actor. He appeared in several Broadway productions and was notably a leading performer at the New York City Opera from 1957 through 1979.
Maralin Niska was an American operatic soprano. Well known as a singing-actress, she was a mainstay of the New York City Opera during the 1960s and 1970s. She was also a regular performer at the Metropolitan Opera from 1970 to 1977.
Joshua Hecht was an American operatic bass.
Video Artists International (VAI), is an independent American DVD-label specializing in classical music performances founded in 1983, and based in Pleasantville, NY. The company started as one of the first labels to release complete operas and ballets on home video, originally in VHS videocassette format. In the early 1990s the label added historical CDs to its video catalogue. VAI's video catalog includes an extensive series of performances from The Bell Telephone Hour. Among the first CDs were performances of arias by Phyllis Curtin, and the 1962 recording of the New Orleans Opera's production of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah.
Knud D. Andersson was a German-born American conductor. He enjoyed a long association with the New Orleans Opera where he served as first assistant conductor and choral director from 1953 to 1965 and then music director and resident conductor from 1965 until his retirement in 1983. The city of New Orleans honored him with certificates of merit in 1957 and 1967.
A Salute to American Music is a 113-minute live album of music, both classical and popular, performed by Steven Blier, Renée Fleming, Paul Groves, Jerry Hadley, Karen Holvik, Marilyn Horne, Jeff Mattsey, Robert Merrill, Sherrill Milnes, Maureen O'Flynn, Phyllis Pancella, Leontyne Price, Samuel Ramey, Daniel Smith, Frederica von Stade, Tatiana Troyanos, Carol Vaness and Denise Woods with the Collegiate Chorale and members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under the direction of James Conlon. The album was released in 1992.
The Metropolitan Opera National Company (MONC) was a short lived American opera company that operated from 1965 to 1967 as a second touring company of the Metropolitan Opera that featured American and Canadian artists in their early stages of career development. While operationally part of the Metropolitan Opera's budget, it was co-sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Led by mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens, the company's roster of artists included many prominent opera singers of the second half of the 20th century in the early part of their careers.
Michael Manuel was an English opera director, set designer, stage manager, and screenwriter who was associated with the Metropolitan Opera. He is chiefly remembered for his work as director of the Metropolitan Opera National Company in the mid 1960s. He later worked as researcher and script writer for John Heyman's film series "The New Media Bible", including the 1979 film Jesus which has been translated into more languages than any other film.
