What is "susannah"

Susannah is an opera in two acts by the American composer Carlisle Floyd, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders, though the latter story has a more positive ending. The story focuses on 18-year-old Susannah Polk, an innocent girl who is targeted as a sinner in the small mountain town of New Hope Valley, in the Southern American state of Tennessee.

The opera was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award for Best New Opera in 1956 and was chosen to represent American music and culture at the World's Fair at Brussels in 1958, with a production (by Frank Corsaro) that featured Phyllis Curtin and Norman Treigle. It received its Metropolitan Opera premiere in 1999, with Renée Fleming singing the title role, Jerry Hadley singing Sam and Samuel Ramey singing Blitch. Ramey also recorded the complete opera with Cheryl Studer as Susannah and Jerry Hadley as Sam. Other well-known sopranos who have portrayed the heroine have included Lee Venora, Joy Clements, Maralin Niska, Nancy Shade, Diana Soviero, Karan Armstrong, Kelly Kaduce and Phyllis Treigle (opposite Michael Devlin as Blitch).

Susannah is one of the most performed American operas, second to Porgy and Bess, and celebrated its 50th anniversary with a performance on the very stage where it premiered February 24, 1955, in Ruby Diamond Auditorium at Florida State University. At the first performance, Carlisle Floyd was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Florida State.

It has been speculated that the opera was inspired by McCarthyism, a period of intense fear of communism in America during the early 1950s. The opera also contains many feminist themes that had not been widely explored in popular culture at the time of the opera’s writing. Floyd has claimed that this opera, like his other operas, was meant to be different from a traditional opera.

The music is largely characterized by Appalachian folk melodies. Also included are some Protestant hymns and some traditional classical music. A particularly prominent part of the opera is Susannah’s soaring and melancholy aria in Act II, "The Trees on the Mountain", which is similar to Appalachian folk tunes but in fact Floyd's own composition.

Susannah is a feminine given name. It is an English version of the Hebrew name Shoshana, meaning lily. Other variants of the name include Susanna, Susana, Susan, Suzanne, and Susie.

Notable people bearing this name include:

• Susannah Breslin, American writer
• Susannah Carr (born 1952), Australian news anchor
• Susannah Carter (fl. 1765), English cookbook author
• Susannah Lattin (1848–1868), American who died at illegal adoption clinic
• Susannah Maria Cibber (1714–1766), English singer and actress
• Susannah Constantine (born 1962), English fashion advisor
• Susannah Corbett (born 1968), English actress and author
• Susannah Darwin (1765–1817), mother of Charles Darwin
• Susannah Doyle (born 1966), English actress, playwright, and film director
• Susannah Fielding (born 1985), English actress
• Susannah Fiennes (born 1961), British artist
• Susannah Fowle (born 1958), Australian actress
• Susannah Grant (born 1963), American screenwriter and director
• Susannah Gunning (1740–1800), British novelist
• Susannah Hagan (born 1951), English professor
• Susannah Harker (born 1965), English actress
• Lady Susannah Holford (1864–1944), English noblewoman
• Susannah Johnson (born 1990), American gymnast
• Susannah Willard Johnson (c. 1729–1810), American captured in Abenaki raid
• Susannah Martin (1621–1692), woman executed during Salem witch trials
• Susannah McCorkle (1946–2001), American jazz singer
• Susannah Meadows, American writer for Newsweek magazine
• Susannah Melvoin (born 1964), American vocalist, songwriter, and actress
• Susannah Sheldon, accuser during Salem witch trials
• Susannah Stacey, pseudonym used by writers Jill Staynes and Margaret Storey
• Susannah Waters, British soprano
• Susannah Wise, English actress
• Susannah York (1939–2011), British actress