Whenever Floyd's
Susannah is mentioned, even in the most passing of passings, a friend of mine inevitably says, "I wouldn't tech them peas o' her'n." He is quoting of course, the immortal line of condemnation that the spiteful Mrs. McLean spits out in the wake of the appearance of the opera's heroine at the local church supper.
Mrs. McLean is what one might charitably call one of opera’s tough old birds -- a middle-aged or elderly woman who, although she doesn't hold any official office in a community, nevertheless holds sway with her generally negative opinions. In Floyd's 1955 opera, Mrs. McLean is suspicious about the attractive young woman right from the start of the work -- claiming "that pretty a face must hide some evil." In the libretto, Mrs. McLean is described as "smug and gloating" when she declares that she isn't surprised that the menfolk have come across Susanna while she was bathing in the nude. Of the four elders' wives discussing the situation, she is the harshest, the most emphatic, jumping on Mrs. Gleaton when the latter expresses even a whiff of kindness toward the entirely innocent girl. It is crystal-clear that, when Susanna is subsequently seduced by the visiting Reverend Olin Blitch (who "shore hates sin" but shore practices it anyway), she won't receive any sympathy at all from these Bible-thumping townswomen of New Hope Valley, Tennessee...not with the likes of Mrs. McLean determining what is and isn't the devil's work. Let's look at some other mid 20th century works in which situations involving public evaluation of morality find their spokesperson in similarly malevolent biddies.
Weill's 1949 Street Scene comes to mind right away. In this case, the "superintendent of the block," so to speak, is one Emma Jones, a veritable battle-ax of a tenant in the East Side tenement where the opera is set. Although her own daughter, Mae, stays out dancing, and her son, Vincent, is loutish, Mrs. Jones trumpets forth on the front stoop of the building, poking into everyone else's business. She nags the janitor about fixing her faucet, chastises young Willie Maurrant for calling up to his mother's window instead of walking upstairs, and then eagerly leads the gossip about Anna Maurrant herself, a downtrodden woman having a fling with the milkman. Mrs. Jones can't miss getting in the occasional dig right to the faces of Anna or her daughter, Rose (to whom she acidly notes, "You seem to have plenty of admirers...but I guess you come by it natural"). It's not just the pervasive heat-wave that could curdle milk in that opera, that's for sure!
