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Carlisle Floyd (born June 11, 1926, in Latta, South Carolina) is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South. His best known opera, Susannah (1955), is based on a story from the Apocrypha, transferred to contemporary, rural Tennessee, and is set in a Southern dialect.

Opera

• Slow Dusk, opera in one act
  Libretto by the composer.
  May 2, 1949, Augustana College, Syracuse, New York
• The Fugitives
  Libretto by the composer.
  1951, Tallahassee, Florida
  [withdrawn]
• Susannah, musical drama in two acts
  Libretto by the composer after the apocryphal Biblical Book of Susannah.
  composed 1953-54; premiere February 24, 1955, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
• Wuthering Heights
  Libretto by the composer after the novel of Emily Brontë.
  1958, Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe, New Mexico; also revised version 1959, New York City Opera
• The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair
  Libretto by the composer.
  1964, Raleigh, North Carolina
  [composed for television]
• Markheim, opera in one act
  Libretto by the composer after the story by Robert Louis Stevenson.
  March 31, 1966, New Orleans Opera, New Orleans, Louisiana, Norman Treigle
• Of Mice and Men
  Libretto by the composer after the novel by John Steinbeck.
  January 22, 1970, Moore Theater, Seattle, Washington
• Flower and Hawk, melodrama
  Libretto by the composer.
  May 16, 1972, Jacksonville, Florida
• Bilby’s Doll
  Libretto by the composer.
  1976
• Willie Stark
  Libretto by the composer after the novel All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.
  April 24, 1981, Houston Grand Opera, Houston, Texas
• Cold Sassy Tree, a musical play in three acts
  Libretto by the composer after the novel by Olive Ann Burns.
  April 14, 2000, Houston Grand Opera, Houston, Texas, Patricia Racette

Awards and nominations

• 1956 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1957 Citation of Merit from the National Association of American Conductors and Composers
• 1959 Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation Award from the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce
• 1964 Distinguished Professor of Florida State University Award
• 1972 Resolution of Appreciation by the State of Florida Legislature
• 1983 Honorary Doctorate from Dickinson College
• 1983 National Opera Institute’s Award for Service to American Opera – the highest honor the institute bestows
• 2001 Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2004 National Medal of Arts from the White House^[1]