Hope is a Choice

Of Mice and Men is the story of two migrant farm workers, George and Lennie, who are in pursuit of their little piece of the American Dream: a small farm to call their own. Everything stands in their way, and at times it seems impossible that they will ever get there. But Carlisle Floyd is a great and sympathetic composer and in his hands the storytelling is transformed.

His score is a work of beauty and he weaves the theme of the little farm through the music in a way that keeps the dream tantalizingly close, so that we too begin to believe that they just might get it. Floyd constantly reminds us that hope is a choice, a choice that George makes over and over again, because of Lennie.

This is a story filled with fragile characters, outsiders desperate to belong, lonely people seeking solace in one another and in their shared visions of the future.
It's a poignant opera, and while Floyd never pulls his punches, it's an opera that always reminds me of what it is to be human. And nowhere is this more evident
than in the wonderfully crafted relationship between George and Lennie.

When I read the book in school, it was easy to write about George's responsibility for Lennie, his developmentally delayed companion for whom he must do so many practical things. But in the sweet, lyrical, lovely music Floyd writes for Lennie, the laughter and playful tunes he gives these two in so many places, I now realize that it's also about what Lennie does for George, the hope and the companionship and the simple joy in life that he provides on a daily basis. It's an example of how music can transcend what's written on the page, and what a great story can become in the hands of a genius composer like Carlisle Floyd.