(Photo Credit: Curtis Brown)

On June 20th, Carnegie Hall will host a Carlisle Floyd Centennial concert celebrating one of American opera’s most distinctive voices. Floyd, who authored both music and libretto for his works, built a canon rooted in rural life, the Great Depression, and the post-Civil War American South, earning him the designation of “Dean” or “Father of American Opera” in the circles that know him well. Outside those circles, however, his name remains less familiar than his stature perhaps deserves.

At the center of the Centennial showcase is conductor Christopher James Ray, whose relationship with Floyd began when the composer, retired to Tallahassee and recently widowed, agreed to give the then-graduate student piano lessons at Florida State. What began as an informal arrangement grew into something closer to a mentorship, with Ray eventually traveling alongside Floyd to opera productions across the country, serving as a liaison between the composer and the music staff.

Though Ray has since built a career ranging across traditional and contemporary operatic repertoire, he has become one of the foremost interpreters of Floyd’s work, and it is in that capacity that he will take the podium at Carnegie Hall. The conductor spoke with OperaWire from Memphis ahead of the concert.

OperaWire: Hello Christopher, thank you for speaking with OperaWire. Carlisle Floyd is frequently hailed as the “Dean” or sometimes “Father of American Opera,” but outside of academia and certain classical circles, especially within America, he would seem to be largely unrecognized. Would you agree with that and, if so, why is that?

Christopher Ray: That’s a good question. I will agree that he is underrecognized. And that’s a big part of why we took on this whole centennial, not just the Carnegie Hall concert, but the whole organization believed that he deserved more recognition, certainly brand recognition.

Everybody knows “Susannah” in the US. If you’re in the opera world you know “Susannah” and maybe “Of Mice and Men,” but beyond that not as much and so we set out to rectify that by talking about his contributions to opera as a sort of industry as well, with the NEA and Opera America and his devotion to regional companies and education, the Houston Grand Opera Studio, building up the next generation of opera goers and opera singers.

But as far as the why, I’m not sure. In fact, I wonder if he’s any less known than any other American opera composer. I mean, Philip Glass and John Adams might be an exception where they have pretty high profile, but Philip Glass does so much film music. And I think maybe that Floyd didn’t write for the symphony hall very much could be a part of it.

OW: As his student and as he was very much your mentor, you were obviously someone that he envisaged as being able to, not necessarily to continue his work, but certainly to succeed in his style and his approach to music. Tell me; what was he like and how, retrospectively, do you view him?

CR: The first thing that comes to mind is that he was gentle. I mean, in the sense of being a gentleman, but also as a spirit, you know, he was a kind person. Even as a teacher, he could be very demanding, but he was never hard on you in a way. And I’ve heard of younger versions of him that were a little bit more cutting, but he maintained his demands without being so harsh, I only knew him in the last 10 years of his life.

But he did seem intent on passing along, you know, information and music, not just about his music, but about how music in general should be approached and interpreted. And I carried that with me.

And sometimes it’s not the easiest way to do things, but if you put in the work, you’ll find that you get this incredible result when you dig into the music.

I spent a couple of summers in Bayreuth and had an opportunity to talk with Christian Thielemann a lot there. And he approaches the music in exactly the way that Carlisle talked about it. And I feel like Thielemann said it a little more concisely.

He said: “Think of any simple thing, like a Beethoven sonata or the melody or something. I try to go through and think through every single variation of every single phrase so that when I’m in performance, I have this whole library that I’ve already developed and I just use one. And that one tells me what the next one will be and what the next one will be, which means that every performance is different. Every rehearsal is different. And some people really don’t like that. They can’t set it and forget it. But I think the artists, the musicians, orchestra, singers, they find it to be the most rewarding way to work because once you know that that flexibility is there and you know what your library of choices are, it’s fun to say: ‘which book are we taking off the shelf today?’”

And Carlisle approached things in the same way; that the phrasing and the music all comes from your core, from your gut. You do all this preparation ahead to know what all the options are. And then in the moment, you’re following your gut.

OW: A number of his critics seem to suggest that, in some ways, he was quite reminiscent of Puccini and some of the composers from that era rather than possessing the qualities that many seem to like and seek in modern opera.

CR: I agree, but I think he would find that as a compliment, and I think that’s why audiences tend to react so well to his music. In fact, if you can market it as being like Puccini, people will love to come to it. They’re scared of it when they think it’s going to be, let’s not name any composers… but what you think of music from the 70’s, 12 tone, serialist, whatever. That’s what everyone’s afraid modern music is going to be, audience wise.

OW: Tell me a little bit about yourself. Obviously, you’re a conductor of some repute, but what is your background?

CR: I’m from Mississippi and small-town Mississippi, a lot like Carlisle, except he’s small-town South Carolina. I just wanted to take piano lessons. It’s funny, I recently re-watched an interview featuring him when we were trying to get together some videos for Carnegie Hall. And he talked about how he basically bothered his mother to death to take piano lessons until she relented. And I was very similar. I was like, I just really wanted to do it. After I finished kindergarten, I started piano and I just loved it. And I started organ shortly after that. Of course, we went to the church. And so, I was that little kid playing as soon as I could reach the organ pedals, I started playing the organ. I played trombone, and then I started just picking up whatever instrument I could. But those are the three I played well.

Then I went to college, the Mississippi College for piano and organ. That’s where I discovered opera for myself, and where I realised that I really wanted to be a part of opera.

So, I started playing for Mississippi Opera and the choruses and the productions. And that led me to Florida State, which is a big opera school. And Carlisle had retired back to Tallahassee, so he was there. That fall, they were doing a big concert of his works in celebration of him, and I was the assistant conductor for it, which is how I met him. My university teacher was lamenting that I needed piano lessons, but it wasn’t in the curriculum, so Carlisle was like: “Well, I’ll teach him.”

And that’s how it started. I started taking piano lessons. His wife had died less than a year before I got to Tallahassee. I think she died in December 2010, and I arrived in summer 2011. He was kind of alone in the house. I mean, Jane, his niece was there, but his wife had just died and he didn’t have anything to do.

And then, after piano lessons, I told him I wanted to learn all of his music with him. I bought all of his vocal scores and started just working through them with him. And then, I’m pretty sure it was Jane, his niece, who originally suggested that I might start assisting him as they traveled to opera companies, in probably early 2012. It was maybe the second semester I was there after studying with him that I started traveling with him and Jane to opera productions to be more or less like a liaison between him and the music staff and the conductor, to give his notes and help him, you know, be his ears.

OW: Without over sentimentalizing things, I would suggest that it’s almost like he clearly saw you as his successor almost, and that he clearly saw something in you with which to perpetuate his legacy, so to speak.

CR: I also felt like he saw a lot of himself in me, of course, not because of our similar backgrounds, but that he wanted to try to prevent me from making the mistakes he had made, even though I wasn’t a compose, but in personal ways of just how to kind of manage the career and how to stay true to oneself. I feel like, in hindsight, Carlisle is known as someone who really stayed true to himself and his style and he wrote the way he wanted to write, even when he was being told, if he didn’t start writing a different way, he wouldn’t be taken seriously. But he was very much: “This is what I hear, this is what I’m going to write.”

And again, I’m not composing, so I don’t compare to that, but I feel that he instilled that in me as a conductor. Carlisle had such integrity and, at times, it’s not made life easy but it’s made it rewarding to follow his guidance.

OW: So, tell me about the upcoming Centennial concert. Was this your idea?

CR: It was really David Gockley’s idea, even before Carlisle died. It was probably 2019 or so. David said: “We’ve got to have a 100th birthday celebration for Carlisle, dead or alive!”

Originally, he really wanted it to be at the Kennedy Center because he had been so involved there. But instead, we went for Carnegie Hall, and a “friend of a friend” introduced me to a concert producer and although this kind of thing is not normally what he does, he does do a lot of concerts at Carnegie Hall.

And so, I asked if he would be willing to be contracted to handle all of the logistics and things and I would sort of direct things, artistically, and handle casting, but with him on the back end of the administration and the production management and everything.

And that has been a really great collaboration. I wasn’t sure how it would be because what they normally do are these big choral concerts, not usually with big orchestras, even smaller orchestras or just piano and choir. Although we do have a chorus so that relates, the orchestra is much bigger than he’s used to, and he doesn’t usually have Susan Graham and Ryan McKinney.

At first, we considered doing the orchestral works kind of thing, where he has some orchestrated song cycles, some orchestrated big choral works, that kind of thing, and recording all of them so that we could, because most people don’t know any of them, it would be a chance to get a great recording.

That went by the wayside for lots of reasons. I suggested that we make it more like a celebration of him. So, the obvious inclusions were “Susannah” and “Of Mice and Men,” but so many productions are being done this year. I think there are 12 productions of  “Susannah” and nine productions of “Of Mice and Men” over the two seasons, so we didn’t really need to focus on them when you could just go to your local opera company and hear that.

OW: What do you have planned for the show?

CR: We are doing the orchestral suite from ‘Susannah’, which is exactly the hit tunes. It plays the overture, the first scene “Ain’t It a Pretty Night.” It just skips right through the opera, and it’s got the voice parts put into solo instruments. Then we’re doing “Pilgrimage,” which was originally for bass, baritone, and piano, and then Carlisle orchestrated it. Then someone, I can’t remember who, asked for a Choral version, so now it’s basically a baritone soloist.

Then the second half is the sampler. Gabriella Reyes is singing “Susannah” at Chicago Lyric this season, and she will sing “Ain’t It a Pretty Night.” Then the opening scene of “The Passion of Jonathan Wade,” which is just a big chorus scene. So, it’ll be chorus and orchestra.

Then Eddie Nelson, who’s been having big Met debuts and successes in New York. He’s going to sing an aria from “Willie Stark,” called “We all Come Out of the Earth.” “Willie Stark” is really one of the operas that just needs to be revived. It hasn’t been done in so long. It’s one of his best operas. When they hear this aria people will be like: “What? Where have we been? Why is no one producing this?”

It’s definitely worth a revival.

Then Susan Graham is singing Molly Sinclair’s aria from “The Sojourner in Molly Sinclair.” This is, again, one of his most beautiful arias, but it’s rarely done. There are lots of reasons why the opera isn’t done. It’s a chamber opera, it’s a one act, it’s hard to program. So, I don’t fault people for not programming it just because it’s difficult in a way, but this aria needs to be known and excerpted. And it’s written for exactly Susan’s voice. I sent it to her and she was like: “This was written for me!”

I was like: “I know! That’s why I sent it to you.”

And then Ryan McKinney is singing Rucker’s sermon from “Cold Sassy Tree.” And then we’re going to finish that act out. We’ve sort of adapted the final scene. It was originally for like nine characters, all the soloists on stage. So instead, we’re going to break up into the core, break the parts up into the chorus, plus all the soloists from the whole night will come back out onto stage. So, we’ll have a huge finale with all the singers and all of the chorus. I think it’s going to be a good night.

OW: I know you said earlier that you don’t compose yourself. Is it something that you aspire to do in the future? And other than your obvious determination to continue with Carlisle’s work, what projects would you like to work on in the future?

CR: Well, I don’t aspire to compose, I don’t have any sort of like yearning or desire to do that. Other things that I love to do, of course, I really do love 20th century American music and 21st sometimes. I also love German, German romantic music. I mentioned I spent a couple of summers at Bayreuth and just fell in love there. I speak German. Most seasons I work at least once in Germany. They’re not going to be the ones to hire me to do all this German rep, but I’m hoping that in the US, the fact that I’ve worked over there enough and speak German will help me over here.

But they tend to be bigger productions that take a longer time to get to. But I mean, lifetime bucket list is something like “Parsifal,” but everyone would say that. Short term bucket list, I would really love to do an “Ariadne auf Naxos,” and a “Lohengrin.” I love “Hansel and Gretel.” I have done it, but I would love to do another “Hansel and Gretel.” I find it to just be rewarding musically, but it’s not like the hardest thing to put on. So, if that makes sense, it’s very deep musically. Of course, I love Puccini. Puccini, Leoncavallo, it’s all kind of the same world as Carlyle, except very different.