Several weeks ago, there was a groundswell on this here site demanding my thoughts on Mr. Samuel Barber's Vanessa once I saw the production now running at the Los Angeles Opera. (Okay, okay. It was Dear Reader S. Woody White who made the request.)
I saw Mr. Samuel Barber's Vanessa last night at the Los Angeles Opera, Dear Readers. To describe it in a word, I shall rely on one of my maternal grandmother's favorite qualitative descriptors: Feh!
The story is a turgid Gothic potboiler: Abandoned twenty years ago by her lover Anatol, Vanessa has since lived as a recluse at her estate in some unnamed northern European country, with all the mirrors and portraits of her as a younger woman kept in shrouds. Living with her is the old Baroness, Vanessa's mother, who has not spoken to Vanessa over the course of these twenty years, and Vanessa's niece Erika, who runs the household.
The opera opens on the evening of Anatol's supposed return to the estate, but it turns out that the gentleman who appears is Anatol, Jr. That doesn't stop him from impregnating Erika (offstage) on the very night he appears at the estate, and proposing marriage to both Vanessa and Erika after a few weeks. Erika holds out for true love but when she hears the announcement of Vanessa's engagement to Anatol at a big ball, she rushes into the snow to kill herself and her unborn child. She is retrieved and survives, though the child is miscarried. In the last act, the Baroness redirects her silent treatment to Erika, the newlyweds head off to Paris on their sleigh, and Erika orders that the mirrors and portraits be shrouded and announces that now it is her turn to wait.
Think Miss Havisham and Estella a la Russe.
I wish I could tell you that the music makes up for the shortcomings of this libretto. Alas, I cannot. Erika does have a lyrical arietta about the winter coming so soon, and there's an interesting love duet (touched here and there by some irony) between Vanessa and Anatol. But most of the score is loud mood music that doesn't go anywhere (at least, to my ear) and the vocal line throughout the piece is almost all declamatory, though not in any way that might be called melodic or akin to natural speech patterns.
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was Vanessa. Dame Kiri remains a very beautful woman and a striking stage presence. She handled the music well, but oh, how I would have preferred that she chose to make her Los Angeles Opera debut as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier (playing later this season) than as Vanessa. Miss Lucy Schaufer was excellent as Erika, singing the most intelligible English I have ever heard sung from an opera stage. Miss Rosalind Elias, who originated the role of Erika some 46 (yes, forty-six) years ago, was the Baroness. The Baroness does not have much to sing (which is good, given the state of Miss Elias' voice) but plays a commanding--but silent--presence through much of the opera. Mr. John Matz was a somewhat pinch-voiced Anatol, and Mr. David Evitts did a spledid job as the Doctor, the only warm hearted and sympathetic character in the entire opera.
Although different settings are called for (Vanessa's drawing room, a ballroom, a conservatory) the production relied on a unit set, dominated by a white circular stairway and glass panels around the perimeter of the stage.
Special note to Dear Reader Elmore 3003: Yes, Dame Kiri did remember the words, but only with the help of a prompter. (This is the first time I've seen a prompter used, by the way, at the Los Angeles Opera. Actually, a small video box was set at the lip of the stage, and it carried the image of a prompter from somewhere backstage.)
