The German premiere was in 1959 at the
Theater Oberhausen. In 1965 and 1966, the
Metropolitan Opera National Company performed the opera in 72 cities throughout North America during a nine month tour. Rossini's The Kammeroper in Vienna produced the opera in 1996 with Canadian Desmond Byrne as Blitch.
Deutsche Oper Berlin premiered their production in 1997 with Dean Petersen in that role. The first performances in the U.K. were given by Kentish Opera in Orpington in July 1961, and were reviewed in
The Times. The opera was performed by John Lewis Opera in 1968, and these performances were incorrectly stated in the 1979 edition of the
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera to be the first stage performances in England In 1996, the opera was performed as a community project directed by
John La Bouchardiere at
mac (Birmingham) in 1996. In November 2001 AAC presents Opera for All put on four performances of Susannah at the Sir Richard Eyre Theatre in Willesden, London NW10. The first fully professional production in the UK was by
English Touring Opera in 2008. The opera had its New York
Metropolitan Opera premiere in 1999 with
Renée Fleming in the title role, and
Samuel Ramey. The
Theater Hagen mounted a production in the spring of 2012. In 2010, with a cast including Latonia Moore as Susannah and James Morris as Blitch, the Opera of Bilbao, Spain produced
Susannah conducted by John Mauceri with the Robert Falls production premiered in Chicago but also produced at the Metropolitan Opera New York. St. Petersburg Opera Company staged a production in 2014 at the
Palladium Theater. The cast included Susan Hellman Spatafora as Susannah and Todd Donovan as Olin Blitch, with Michael Unger as Stage Director and Mark Sforzini as Conductor. A DVD of the production was created on the Naxos label, which was awarded The Best of 2017 - Recordings/Video by Opera News. == Discography ==