Vanessa Waits No Longer

Met operagoers happily greeted Vanessa at its 1958 world premiere. Here, at last, was an opera with stirring melodies, a rich orchestral palette, a stellar cast, and a gorgeous production. A predominantly conservative committee awarded Barber’s opera the Pulitzer Prize for music; the music critics of a more contemporary bent were charry with praise. For many, the opera was neither “American” enough nor did it belong to the avant-garde. Barber’s neo-Romantic manner and Gian-Carlo Menotti’s melodramatic libretto were harshly received at its first European hearing at the 1958 Salzburg festival. The popularity of two of the composer’s haunting melodies and its ethereal finale failed to secure a place for the full opera on the world’s lyric stages.

Vanessa, the eponymous heroine, waited two decades for love to reenter her life; her opera required another ten years before restagings captured new audiences. Barber was no longer “old hat.” Two studio recordings and the DVD of a 2018 Glyndebourne production helped secure a place for Vanessa in the canon of late 20^th century opera. The Met’s exceptional world premiere cast—Eleanor Steber, Rosalind Elias, Regina Resnik, Nicolai Gedda, Giorgio Tozzi, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos—can be heard in excepts and in the complete opera on YouTube. This post features more recent performances of the renascent score.

Vanessa’s niece, Erika, the lynchpin of the narrative, sings the memorable first aria, “Must the Winter Come so Soon.” In auditions and concerts its haunting, melancholic melody favors the timbre and legato phrasing of lyric mezzo-sopranos; it helped make a star of its original exponent, Rosalind Elias. Our clip reminds us of the exquisite art of Katherine Ciesniski, Erika in 1978 at the Charleston Spoleto festival.

Vanessa, believing that her long-absent lover has finally returned, refuses to look at Anatol until he again declares his love. Her aria, “Do not Utter a Word,” has been recorded and sung in concert by many spinto sopranos able to negotiate its contrasting dynamic levels and emotions. Emma Bell is a compelling Vanessa in the 2018 Glyndebourne production.

 

The Anatol who arrives at Vanessa’s mansion is not the man she expected but his worldly, ne’er-do-well son, who promptly seduces Erika. In the next scene, “Outside this House.” is a lighthearted proposal of marriage to the reluctant Erika who realizes that his promise of superficial happiness does not correspond to the deep love for which she yearns. In this clip from the excellent 2004 recording of the complete opera conducted by Leonard Slatkin, William Burden’s sweet tenor voices Anatol’s personality so deftly conveyed by the facile charm Barber embeds in the music.

   

It is Vanessa who finally leaves with Anatol; Erika takes her place, waiting for love. Barber caps the opera with a quintet, acknowledged as the masterstroke of the work and one of grand opera’s greatest ensembles. “To Leave, to Break” is excerpted from a complete 2025 concert performance led by Gianandrea Noseda, conducting the National Symphony Orchestra and a superb cast at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.: Nicole Heaston (Vanessa), J’nai Bridges (Erika), Matthw Polenzani (Anatol), Susan Graham (The Old Baroness), Thomas Hampson (The Old Doctor).

 

P.S. The complete peformances of Vanessa found on YouTube are highly recommended. Stunning excerpts, among others, are sung by Frederica Von Stade (“Must the Winter Come so Soon”) and Leontyne Price “Do not Utter a Word”).