Customer Reviews

Floyd: Of Mice and Men

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As a teenager many years ago, the novelist John Steinbeck was BIG. The 'Grapes of Wrath' (1939); does any one read it anymore ? A native Californian, he wrote eloquently about the 'little people' who made the Golden State a world producer of our food supply, from mushrooms to grapes, on the backs of these 'paisanos', most of them migrants from other parts of the country, and south of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo del Norte).

'Of Mice and Men' (1937) is a story about a friendship between two itinerant farm workers, one mentally challenged (Lennie), a gentle giant, and the other, his buddy and protector (George), both yearning to own their own place where they could be free and masters of their own destinies, the American dream. A moving story with tragic consequences.

Carlisle Floyd, best known for his opera 'Susannah' (1954), composed an opera based on this book by Steineck in 1970. I first heard it on a BBC broadcast around that time in England from an Irish music festival performance (Wexford ?), and was greatly moved, and I waited for years for a commercial release. This one, the only recording to my knowledge, is from a live performance of a Houston Grand Opera production in 2003, with Gordon Hawkins (George) and Anthony Dean Griffey (Lennie), with the house orchestra conducted by Patrick Summers. It is a fine testament of Floyd's work.

We, Americans, have some notable operatic composers, notably Gerswhin, Barber, Menotti, Bernstein, Glass and Adams, for example. I do not care much for the 'minimalists' like Glass and Adams, despite their worldwide popularity. It makes for great staging perhaps, but the musical language is annoyingly repetitive, exasperating, on discs at least. These works are probably better seen than heard ? I have not had that priviledge.

Floyd's music is certainly modern but more 'romantic', more visceral, closer to a later Puccini but certainly quintessentially 'American'. His 'Susannah' is most gripping, and the Virgin Classic recording (1994), with a cast whch includes Cheryl Studer, Samuel Ramey and Jerry Hadley, with Kent Nagano conducting the Lyon chorus and orchestra, is highly recommended.

In this live stage recording of 'Of Mice and Men', from the police sirens at the start of the opera to Lennie's final agonising cry of "I see it, over there", referring to the home he will never see (and has yet to materialize), his own American dream, is a most moving dramatic experience. The orchestra and voices are vividly captured on this release, with no optrusive stage sounds but for a final, well-deserved, applause.

My only reservation are in the 'tracks' provided on these two CDs, cues too far in-between, and not listed in the accompanying booklet which does however offer the full libretto (in English only) and some photographs of the Houston production. Hence, not the full five stars.