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”).

In Memoriam: Rosalind Elias and Gabriel Bacquier

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In our last post (http://operapost.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-met-in-time-of-pandemic-unfinished_0866050429.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Operapost+%28OperaPost%29) we noted that in May 2020 the Met mourned the passing of two stars of a previous generation. Here, in gratitude for their many wonderful performances, we remember Rosalind Elias (March 13, 1930-May 3, 2020) and Gabriel Bacquier (May 17, 1924-May 13, 2020).

Rosalind Elias

Only the fabled Louise Homer (1871-1947) sang more often at the Met as a leading mezzo-soprano than did Rosalind Elias. Thirty-five seasons, fifty roles, and 687 performances underpin Elias’s place in the company history. She made her 1954 debut as one of the nearly anonymous warrior maidens in Act III of Die Walküre. During her first three seasons Elias took her turn as a supporting player, a comprimaria. Some of the secondary characters assigned to her afforded extended dramatic and vocal opportunities (Suzuki [Madama Butterfly], Siébel [Faust], for instance), but most parts were brief (a Peasant Girl [Le Nozze di Figaro], a Flower Maiden [Parsifal]). It was not until opening night 1957 that Elias had her big break. She was cast as Tatiana’s sister, Olga, in a new production of Eugene Onegin. And later in the same season she was tapped for the pivotal role of Erika in the world premiere of Vanessa. In fact, Samuel Barber wrote the score’s most memorable aria to suit Elias’s voice--wide-ranging, with an identifiably dusky timbre, powerful enough to convey the young woman’s nervous energy and depth of emotion. “Must the Winter Come so Soon” became a favored audition piece for mezzo-soprano. Here is Elias in the original cast recording of Vanessa.

Erika put Elias on the path to major assignments--opening nights, new productions, world premieres. And core mezzo parts such as Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), and Laura (La Gioconda) continued to come her way. But she was at her best in Vanessa and Werther. In this recording of scenes from Massenet’s opera, the lovelorn Charlotte gives way to the tears she has long suppressed. The warmth and doleful sound of Elias’s lyric mezzo serves the stifled ardor of the Goethe/Massenet heroine as it did the neo-Romantic idealism of Barber’s Erika.

Gabriel Bacquier

One of very few post-War French singers to achieve stardom with international opera companies, Gabriel Bacquier came to New York in 1964 following engagements in Vienna, Milan, London, and major European festivals. In eighteen Met seasons he made 123 appearances. It was no surprise that a leading French baritone would debut as the High Priest in a new production of Samson et Dalila. But despite his French roots and early experience on French stages, Bacquier would specialize in the Italian repertoire, and most often as Tosca’s nemesis. His Scarpia is a subtle hybrid of delicacy and brutality. His fatal face-off with the Roman diva is laced with practiced elegance and unbridled lust. We hear Bacquier at his peak, in a live performance from the Opéra.

Later in his career, Bacquier found a home in the buffo manner. He was memorable as Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and he made a star turn out of the irascible Fra Melitone in La Forza del destino. The aria that follows is excerpted from a role that, alas, he never sang in New York. The riotous conclusion of Act I, Scene 1 of Verdi’s Falstaff bristles with the baritone’s physical and tonal energy as the “fat knight” trumpets his cynical definition of “Onore (Honor).”