Vanessa Naxos 8.669140–41
- Composer(s):
Barber, Samuel
- Lyricist(s):
Menotti, Gian Carlo
- Conductor(s):
Rose, Gil
- Choir(s):
Ukrainian National Capella “Dumka”
- Artist(s):
Bauwens, Ray; Chickering, Ellen; Conrad, Richard; Dry, Marion; Lima, Philip; Matthews, Andrea
Barber began concentrated work on Vanessa, a name he took from a book, How to Name Your Child, during the winter of 1956, when the Metropolitan announced that it would produce the opera. In October of 1957, Barber played (and sang) the completed sections for representatives of the Met and its General Manager, Rudolf Bing. Immediately discussions about casting began, and Barber attended many Met performances listening to singers who might possibly fill the various parts. Maria Callas, then at the height of her fame, was his preferred choice for the title rôle. Barber invited her to Capricorn, the home he and Menotti had built in Mt. Kisco, NY, and played through the score for her. Callas was unimpressed, feeling that the rôle of Erika was stronger than that of the protagonist, and she refused to consider it. It was finally decided that Sena Jurinac, the Yugoslavian soprano star of the Vienna State Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival would make her Met début as Vanessa. A lyric soprano renowned for her Mozart interpretations, Jurinac was also an extraordinary linguist and spoke excellent English. So too did the Swedish tenor, Nicolai Gedda, whom Barber had heard in Paris and felt was perfect for the rôle of Anatol. The other principals, Rosalind Elias, Regina Resnik, and Giorgio Tozzi, were American, and Metropolitan veterans. The première was announced for the 1957–58 season with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting. Menotti would be the stage director, and the English designer, Cecil Beaton, whose costumes for the musical, My Fair Lady, were so successful they started a fashion trend, would create both sets and costumes.
Barber spent the summer of 1957 in Italy, working together with Mitropoulos on the orchestration, and coaching Rosalind Elias in Rome and Jurinac in Vienna. In the fall, construction of sets and costumes started, and musical rehearsals began at the Opera House. By early December everything was in place and on schedule, when Jurinac sent word that she was ill, and cancelled her engagement. One can imagine the despair which everyone involved with the project must have felt. There was talk of postponement when Edgar Vincent, press agent to many operatic personalities, contacted Max Rudolf, the Met’s Coordinator, suggesting that there was one person who could “save the day”: Eleanor Steber. “She should have done it in the first place,” said Vincent. A star at the Met for fifteen years, Steber had often “come to the rescue” before. She had not sung at the House the previous season owing to a disagreement with Rudolf Bing over repertoire and the fact that she was being paid far less than European singers who sang her rôles. In September she had returned in triumph as Donna Anna in a new production of Don Giovanni, but she still felt that Bing was intent on easing her out of the company.
Barber and Steber already had made an historical collaboration ten years earlier with Knoxville, Summer of 1915, which the soprano commissioned, and of which she gave the first performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. There was also a somewhat subliminal connection in that Steber’s singing teacher, William L. Whitney, had been, early in his career, the teacher of Barber’s Aunt Louise. When Steber sang through the rôle with the composer, she felt “the part was made for me.” Indeed, listening to the original-cast recording, it is difficult to believe that every note was not tailored to her soaring soprano. With only five weeks to learn this fiendishly difficult part, Steber called upon every vocal and musical resource at her command. Much of her performing schedule was arranged and rescheduled, but many commitments, such as her annual Christmas Voice of Firestone television broadcast, had to be honoured. Then, in the middle of it all, she announced that she was getting married. Barber begged her to wait until after the première, fearing that the distraction would ruin his opera, but the soprano announced passionately that if she did not get married, “there wouldn’t be an opera!” And so, marry she did, with Barber and Menotti providing Capricorn for a quick honeymoon.
At the première, the new opera and its heroic heroine were rapturously received by a sold-out, celebrity-filled audience. Barber’s music and Menotti’s libretto and production were lavishly praised by the press, and Steber’s seemingly impossible feat was appreciated and lauded by everyone, including Rudolf Bing. Elias, Resnik, Tozzi, and Mitropoulos were singled out for enthusiastic praise, and the opera played to sold-out houses for the rest of the season, winning the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for music. It was in the Met’s repertory for the following season as well, and then performed in Baltimore and in Boston on their annual spring tour. The summer after the première, Vanessa became the first American opera to be presented at the Salzburg Festival, with most of the same cast, Menotti’s production, and Beaton’s sets and costumes. Although a great success with the public, the German and Austrian press were vicious in their organized condemnation, though they praised the singers, especially Steber and Gedda.
Vanessa Review
“In 2002, members of the old Boston Academy of Music flew to Ukraine to record Samuel Barber's romantic "Vanessa,” an opera the company had produced earlier in the Cutler Majestic Theatre.
Now Naxos has issued the recording, the first since the world premiere version in 1958. The opera got off to a difficult start but now is beginning to become a repertoire piece; the widespread availability of the new recording may help accelerate its progress. It is a nice souvenir of an interesting period in our operatic history, and it documents the work of singers who deserve something more than “local favorite” status.
The title role is a gift to a prima donna in late career –it was Kiri te Kanawa's last new stage role. A prima donna is certainly what Ellen Chickering is. Hers may be more a theater than a recording voice, but it is a major instrument, and her control is still impressive –listen to the pianissimo, the decrescendos, the cleanly attacked high notes. And, as always, she is an enthusiastic singing actress.
Cast a little against type, Andrea Matthews makes a nice contrast as Erica. Matthews is a lyric soprano, not the mezzo Barber calls for, but this does make her sound younger than Vanessa. Ray Bauwens occasionally sounds too well-mannered for the self-centered Anatol, but it's nice to have a record of his solid, musical tenor. Marion Dry, Richard Conrad, and Philip Lima make flavorful contributions in the character roles, and conductor Gil Rose wrings an exciting orchestral performance out of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine." Richard Dyer – The Boston Globe