Floyd’s epic grand opera portrays the South in the early days of the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. The title character is a Union officer who arrives in Charleston, South Carolina, to administer the city in the months immediately after the way. He marries Celia Townsend, the daughter of a local judge, creating tensions with the embittered Charleston townspeople and the eager New Englanders seeking to profit from the Reconstruction. Their love is destroyed by the intolerance and hate of those around them.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Floyd explains: “I tried to show the Civil War as the collision of two entirely different cultures, which is what it came down to. It was the cavalier culture of the South, which was really more close to the samurai culture in valuing the family and its virtual worship of ancestors, versus the entrepreneurial Yankee ideals.

The character of Wade demonstrates the impossibility of a man of moderation and reasonableness to survive in a climate of extremism. This is, I learned, the Goethian idea of tragedy, where a character is trapped in circumstances that permit no solution.”