On this day in 1999 the Metropolitan Opera offered its first production of Carlisle Floyd‘s Susannah, starring Renée Fleming, Samuel Ramey and Jerry Hadley (not pictured).

Martin Bernheimer in Opera:

As the victimized heroine who depends on the kindness of preachers, Renée Fleming sang exquisitely – ah, those high pianissimo flights. Unfortunately, she overdid the nasal twang and settled for wan interpretative generalities until the finale, in which she compromised sympathy by interpolating a mad scene. Samuel Ramey underplayed the magnetic hysteria of the revivalist Olin Blitch, but offered sombre and seductive vocalism as compensation. Jerry Hadley sounded like a hero and acted like a bumpkin as an all-too-alcoholic Sam Polk. John McVeigh focused the innocence behind the cruelty of the mentally challenged Little Bat.

The hypocritical townsfolk, solo and choral, performed with zeal. Joyce Castle as Mrs. McLean earned the usual unwanted laugh, however, with the line at the church supper signaling Susannah’s doom: “I wouldn’t tech them peas o’ her’n’.” Operatic melodrama is a fragile thing.