Carlisle Floyd

With Susan Hawkshaw

Hofstra University

Hempstead, Long Island, New York

November 16, 2000

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side f:                                                                                                                        pp. 1-24

Family background--early exposure to music, piano study--early interest in drawing--hymns and folk music--family name Floyd--creative writing in high school--studying English and music at college--Slow Dusk as a graduate student at Syracuse University--Southern dialects: low country and up (hill) country--dialect specialist for Susannah and Cold Sassy Tree--original folk-like material in the operas--Passion of Jonathan Wade--Slow Dusk--accessibility of his music--“Trees on the Mountain” from Susannah--Phyllis Curtin--Renée Fleming--influence of the “Copland Sound”--use of jazz elements--the waltz and minuet in Wuthering Heights--setting English to music--balance of voice and orchestra--how one adapts a libretto from a novel--Cold Sassy Tree--Willie Stark-- approach to stage direction--working with film (Bruce Beresford) and Broadway directors (Hal Prince)--influences of Broadway musicals--crossover between Broadway and opera.

Side g:                                                                                                            pp. 24-35

Harold Prince as stage director in Willie Stark--teaching composition--art of writing a libretto--changes made in the story of Of Mice and Men--libretto for Willie Stark; Robert Penn Warren--productions of Floyd operas by other stage directors--productions of Susannah--process of composition--revising: The Passion of Jonathan Wade--revising after hearing a live performance--Susannah--change in style: Markheim and Susannah--influence of films and plays--lack of opera programs at colleges and universities earlier in the twentieth century--influence on him of American playwrights and Southern writers.