Too many sources!
"My theory: Composers who ignore significant parts of their being - nationality included - cut their creativity off at the knees. Barber was being derivative in self-defeating ways out of deference to the operatic genre. Bernstein, in comparison, was out to tell important stories using the most effective means possible..." David Patrick Stearns adds his voice to the debate about Vanessa in the Philadelphia Inquirer.Oh, and La Cieca has discovered where she read the line about Vanessa being the American Adriana Lecouvreur. It's from the "Goings On About Town" column in the New Yorker. (Since the subject is classical music, one assumes Alex Ross at least contributed to the piece, though it's unclear whether the "Adriana" mot is an authentic Rossism.)
And finally, La Cieca was just remembering something she was giggling about during the performance of Vanessa at the NYCO. One couldn't help noticing that Lauren Flanigan was, well, just a little on the zaftig side, and that her costumes were not exactly slenderizing. So, in the second scene, after the "Under the Willow Tree" number, Flanigan smoothed down her skirt and sang "Erika, I am so happy. I know now..." However, what La Cieca heard was not "happy" but "hippy" which under the circumstances made just as much sense: "Erika, I am so hippy."
Unfortunately, that word "happy" does crop up again frequently again in the libretto, so La Cieca just about disgraced herself snickering:
Vanessa: "Good morning, Pastor, we shall soon be ready. Have some coffee with us. Oh, how hippy I feel this morning, how hippy!"
The Doctor: "I know you will make a hippy couple."
Erika: "Please forget me. Make her hippy, Anatol" and "Goodbye, be hippy, Aunt Vanessa, please be hippy."
Labels: alex ross, critic, festoonery, gay gay gay gay gay
POSTED at
12:44 AM
27 Comments:
russell platt does the "About Town Listings," not Alex Ross
Thanks, Anonymous.
I do not get Vanessa. What is the big deal? or is there a big deal? derivative is exactly the right word....I can't take it...Vanessa belongs to a different era and sensibility...that era when everything "Euoprean" was preferable....poeple who love Vanessa will never give the same accolades to Susannah because it is "American"...and they are usually older queens...the ones who were there for Callas' Norma at the old Met
'Vanessa' is not a piece I know well. I have only heard the whole thing once, in concert at London's Barbican a few years ago with Christine Brewer and Susan Graham.
It's hokum, but high-class hokum and has fine vocal writing, a number of good tunes and a string of powerful (if synthetically overwrought) situations. That's more than can be said for a number of operas with firmer places in the repertoire. It could be very viable in a smaller house. -- for instance Glyndebourne: it would suit the predominantly middlebrow audience there and could easily incorporate a dinner break. (One must get one's priorities right.) Maybe when Renee's big-house appeal starts to wane she would consider a summer in Sussex ...
'Vanessa' is not one of Barber's masterpieces, admittedly. Hysteria probably wasn't his natural thing - as opposed to the metaphysically-tinged nostalgia of 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915' which, in my book, is one of the 20th century's great vocal works. By the same token, 'Antony and Cleopatra' sounds unconvincing, though who could resist Leontyne swooping and floating away about her 'man of men'.
Indeed, I cannot claim credit for this mot. I sometimes contribute signed "Notebook" items to the Goings On About Town section but almost never have anything to do with the classical listings themselves. Russell Platt edits the section and writes most of it.
Well my dear La Cieca...my my my you certainly seem to have a strong dislike for this opera.
Let's look at what Russell Platt actually wrote:
"Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa”—one of his loveliest creations—is an American “Adriana Lecouvreur,” a work of supple lyricism and gentle beauty with a lead role (created by Eleanor Steber at the Met in 1958) that is a gift to mature sopranos."
So he was hardly meaning to slam VANESSA in the comparison, as one would have imagined from the cites people were making here.
However I fear that to imagine that since Vanessa is a mature character, she is written for a mature voice and is somehow a relatively "easy sing" like Adriana shows some of the limits of Mr. Platt's critcial acumen.
To put it simply, Vanessa has to sing higher, lower, louder, and faster than Adriana. A very difficult part indeed, even without the Skating Aria.
At the time of VANESSA's premiere, January 1958, Callas, for whom the role was intended, was 34; Sena Jurinac, for whom it was written, was 36; and Steber, who premiered it, was 43, although everyone believed she was 41. Brenda Lewis, the cover and second Vanessa, was also 36.
Nerva: La Cieca at least hardly would call comparison with Adriana Lecouvreur a "slam." Vanessa could be a most lovely and entertaining evening if produced with great style; my point is that the NYCO failed on the dramatic side of the "style" requirement.
I do think that, like Adriana, the music of Vanessa tends toward a sort of generalized sweetness that can push whatever genuine sentiment there may be in the work over the top to bathos. In both works, too, the libretto is mostly not much help.
My main point of disagreement is the notion that the role of Vanessa is particulary grateful for an older soprano, or for that matter for any singer at all. It's a very hard sing and the character is such a shallow, selfish bitch that I at least find it impossible to care about her past the first scene, at least as I have seen the work staged. Steber on the classic recording does manage to generate some sympathy -- mostly, I think, through intrinsic beauty of voice and personal charm.
I was hoping that Lauren Flanigan would carry the role through a really bold acting performance, but her dramatic choices seemed to me soft and sentimental; basically what communicated to me was that she felt sorry for the character. Again, it didn't help that the costumer and wig designer failed to transform Flanigan into a dazzling beauty, or that Flanigan herself didn't seem to believe that Vanessa was such a dish. Vanessa is not about a mousy spinster who never had another chance after her first romance, but rather about a popular belle who deliberately put herself in cold storage out of (I would say) spite and wounded vanity.
Following up on what bittertaste said, I do think one of the failings of the libretto is that it seems concocted to for maximum "hysteria," whereas the really interesting story here is how Vanessa deludes herself (if she is deluding herself) into falling for the young Anatol. Unfortunately Menotti never wrote any such scene; we only get to hear "Oh, Erika, I'm so happy" over and over again, and Barber doesn't seem to take the initiative to depict the process of attraction musically; he's too busy setting up that cheesy laendler dance.
On second viewing (my first being 13 seasons ago) I can definitely see the short comings of this opera. Seeing the same production certainly didn't help either. Every critique that La Cieca has made is totally on point. I thought that I loved this opera because I cried from the quintet to the end opera on my first viewing. On second viewing I just found myself self asking some of those same questions that our dear La Cieca has just posed. That being said I still like the opera, but an American masterpiece - IT AIN'T.
I adore your "hippy/happy" confusion. Reminds me of that old George Hamilton movie parody, "Zorro, The Gay Blade," where everybody keeps talking about "injustice to the people" except they pronounce it with a ridiculous Spanish accent that makes it sound like "InJewStous To The Pipples."
The last time I saw Ms. Flanigan n person--about two and a half years ago--she was still quite svelt. Has she actually gained that much weight, or was she padded in the production's idea of what an aging beauty who's become reclusive "should" look like? My first reaction in the house was "Oh, they've padded her." Does anybody know for sure?
I don't know Will, but the last time I saw her on stage was at the Gala at NYCO Sept 2006, and I wouldn't call her svelte then. I also don't know if they padded her, but I somehow don't think they would do that.
HOWEVER, while some singers like the feeling of tight corsets against their ribs and stomach area because they feel it gives them something to "push against" for support, I also know singers who feel like they can't breathe if the clothing is too restrictive, and the costumes sometimes have to be cut slightly bigger in order for the singer to feel comfortable - and let's face it, if the singer feels like they can't breathe, what's the f'n point????
Cutting the costume like this can add quite a bit of visual weight however. I don't know if this was the case with Ms. Flanigan, but I suppose it's possible.
Ok the internets just ate my comment.
Meanwhile, Sharon Graham, that's just silly. Vanessa is not derivative, and Susannah is a perfectly fine opera, and the two facts don't have much to do with each other. I say this as a queen born almost 20 years after Callas' debut, incidentally.
Lauren Flanigan has never been "svelte" in her life. She has the largest saddlebags in the Western Hemisphere which is why she looks so "happy."
It's interesting the number of people who come to the conclsion that neither "Vanessa" nor AC are Barber's masterpieces. If you discount "A Hand of Bridge" from consideration, then you have to ask the inevitable question whether Barber would have been a better opera composer without knowing Menotti, or whether he would have
produced little or no work of significance for the theater. Having done two productions , I've come to the conclusion that Barber's gifts were primarily small-scale and lyrical, which didn't work terribly well for Schubert, Schumann or Wolf either in producing undying theater.
I find that I can't listen to the over the top hysterics anymore, they feeled forced and "composed", in opposition to those lovely set pieces that do work, such as Erika and Anatol's arias and the quintet. But if I have to listen to yet another soprano hiss "Do not utter a word" at me, I'm afraid I'll have to go over and slap the wench. Vanessa is one of the more sympathetic title characters ever conceived, and much of it seems to derive from the librettist's slightly condescending view of female emotional stability.
Barber was arguably never succesful in large scale productivity, neither of his symphonies are terribly convincing and his piano concerto, the only large piece written between the two operas suffers from the same forced sense of theatrical gesture that does not come naturally to Barber.
Not everyone can be Verdi, after all.
Naturally I meant "Least" sympathetic characters when talking about dear Auntie Vanessa. Never write when you're tired and drinking.
Dear keikobad: Just heard the Barber Piano Concerto live this weekend at the San Francisco Symphony, in a good performance with Leonard Slatkin and Gahrick Olsson, and couldn't agree with you more. This is music that isn't aging well at all. And you're right, not every good composer is cut out to write opera or even "dramatic" pieces like Barber's Piano Concerto.
A long time ago I bought the Steber/Elias CD and tried hard to like Vanessa, I just never quite managed and I'm not sure what the problem was/is. For me, it mostly just misses too many marks. It's not lush and melodic enough or atonal and 'challenging' enough.
The dramatic conflict doesn't hold up to scrutiny (and I always feel sorry for whoever's cast as the baroness, a role that's supposed to be mute most of the time can't be fun for an opera singer).
There's also the language issue. Infelicities about deer weeping in the woods aside, it just .... doesn't hit the right keys, it reads a little too much like Danish translated into Czech and then into English.
I think the big problem is that while there are some great set pieces the recitative is a bore and operas live or die based more on recitative than the big arias.
"... and operas live or die based more on recitative than the big arias."
A highly original insight. But is it even remotely true?
Can you give us any substantiation for this?
"A highly original insight"
No, it's not (well I think it is, but it's not my insight).
IIRC I think I came across it in Irving Kolodin's 'Opera Omnibus' (may have been somewhere else). Lots of post Bel canto composers could right pretty tunes, what they often couldn't do (and what Verdi and Puccini could) was keep things interesting between the showpieces.
I also remember a Bernstein book where he made the claim (then very controversial) that Porgy and Bess was Gershwin's masterpiece and what made it great wasn't just the set pieces, but just how often the recitative was interesting ("it's like dis Crown ...")
The opening with the menu planning and the line that gave this post it's name is very good, but a lot of the rest is a chore one endures to the good bits.
I think Janacek was one of the very best at writing the recitatives. There's a continuous forward energy and great profile to his writing for even the most mundane exchanges between characters. It's one of the qualities to which I most respond n his operas.
Thank God I'm not the only one who thought Ms. Flanigan was grossly miscast. I had been looking forward to this production, but sat there for wishing I had a time machine to whisk me back to the Washington Opera where Kiri te Kanawa sang the role five years ago. Granted she's a little long in the tooth, but she has the icy grandeur that I would think is essential for making the role work. Not to mention the kind of beauty that would make a man pine for her his whole life. I can't imagine anyone pining for the hopeless neurotic that Ms. Flanigan and Michael Kahn presented us. Why Erica would revere and indulge such a helpless ninny was beyond comprehension. Vanessa is imperious, delusional, cold. Ms. Flanigan looked and acted like Edith Bunker in a bad wig.
Has everything been said about "Vanessa" that could be said? Probably, but that won't stop me. I saw the last performance, which was rather a lovefest for all involved, including the enthusiastic audience. I wasn't swept up in the general emotion, however. Some thoughts, in no particular order:
* The music, overall, sounded like Barber was trying doggedly to be modern, by being dissonant wherever possible. Didn't work for me. Also, it was portentous without conveying anything much. This is not to diminish the skill necessary to write an entire opera, but it mostly wasn't music I would voluntarily hear again. As opposed, for example to Prokofiev's "The Gambler," which was exciting from first to last and not easy listening.
* The libretto is a big, big problem, particularly the language. How much better it would be if it were sung in Italian without subtitles. Or some other less accessible language. It was just about unbearable. Did Barber think it was any good or wasn't it possible to get Menotti to fix it? Maybe it wasn't the best idea to have his partner write the thing for him. He should have gotten Auden and Kallman to do it.
* On the subject of the libretto, what a plot! "Twaddle" came to mind, often. I wonder if Isak Dinesen left in the middle because she was feeling unwell or if she was appalled at the faux-Gothic sensibility Menotti derived from her stories. I felt adrift in the vaguely defined "North," where snow covered the ground (a la Norway) but characters had French names and were going to take the train to Paris (a la Belgium). This vagueness didn't succeed in making "Vanessa" timeless, only confusing.
* The people. And what a bunch they were. Erika was the much more interesting character, which is a problem if the opera is supposed to be about Vanessa, I think. The ending, though, it is to laugh. Maybe the problem is that it isn't enough for characters to go around saying "I love you, I love you" without doing anything to convince the viewer that they are in love, which is a problem with the libretto, as well as the music. In "Traviata," do we doubt for a minute that Violetta loves Alfredo? In "Jenufa," do we question that any of the characters are experiencing deeply felt emotions? Of course not. In "Vanessa," I was constantly wondering what on earth everyong except Erika and the Baroness were doing most of the time.
Good singing, though.
Addison:
Do they think we're a lot of children? It would bore any four year old! What drivel! What nonsense! What escapist Technicolor twaddle!
Though, strictly speaking, La Cieca reserves the superbly descriptive term "escapist Technicolor twaddle" for the likes of I La Galigo.
michael farris you are my new hero! my shameful secret for many many years now is that I live for the recitatives - whether it's Mozart, Puccini or Wagner. most of the arias in the standard rep bore me by now - they're done to death (and rarely memorably compared to what one heard in one's youth). good recitative singing is a dying art, and not widely respected or even taught anymore, judging by what we hear nowadays from many in the younger generation of singers - they rush through the recits without really singing them and with no attention to vocal line - with more of a sprechstimme, really.
Since my name is being bandied about in these august annals, I might as well join in. I am Russell Platt and yes, I am the New Yorker editor who writes and edits the Classical Music section of "Goings On About Town." (I do not always write the little opera reviews; I often hire a freelancer—who shall remain nameless—when I can't go to something.) Such listings are unsigned for a number of reasons, so I will not be a regular interlocutor in these discussions (though I'm glad that a little review can have such resonance!), but I've lived with Barber's music all my life, so I'll make an exception.
As to my operatic "acumen," I should present my credentials—I am a composer (my principal teachers were Ned Rorem and Dominick Argento, so I am not unschooled in the lyrical art), and I listen as a composer. And while I respect, and learn from, critics who concentrate on opera exclusively or intensely—it is really a world unto itself—I think that the art form can withstand critics who come from a number of perspectives.
I can't quite agree with Tony Tommasini that VANESSA is an American masterpiece, but I think if the NYCO production taught us anything it is that the piece, in America at least, is here to stay. Like—yes—ADRIANA LECOUVREUR, the music, however sentimental, is just too lovely to throw it away. (I could, however, live without Under the Willow Tree.)
I don't doubt that Vanessa is a harder "sing" than Adriana, but the analogy has some usefulness. Barber and Menotti may not have intended V. to be a role for a "mature" singer, but that is what it has inarguably become—its most recent exponents have been Flanigan, Christine Brewer, and Kiri Te Kanawa, none of whom are ingenues. (Is that Renée Fleming on Line 2?) Brenda Lewis, a close friend, has pointed out that you HAVE to be mature to sing the role, because only with the benefit of a depth of life experience can you hope to give shape and meaning to what is a hopelessly two-dimensional character.
Whenever I have to review TOSCA, I end up loving/hating it because the tunes take a week to retreat from the front of my mind. The same wonderful problem occurred after VANESSA—why don't orchestras do the Intermezzo all the time?—even though the contagion was of lesser intensity. Bravo, Sam.
Since my name is being bandied about in these august annals, I might as well join in. I am Russell Platt and yes, I am the New Yorker editor who writes and edits the Classical Music section of "Goings On About Town." (I do not always write the little opera reviews; I often hire a freelancer—who shall remain nameless—when I can't go to something.) Such listings are unsigned for a number of reasons, so I will not be a regular interlocutor in these discussions (though I'm glad that a little review can have such resonance!), but I've lived with Barber's music all my life, so I'll make an exception.
As to my operatic "acumen," I should present my credentials—I am a composer (my principal teachers were Ned Rorem and Dominick Argento, so I am not unschooled in the lyrical art), and I listen as a composer. And while I respect, and learn from, critics who concentrate on opera exclusively or intensely—it is really a world unto itself—I think that the art form can withstand critics who come from a number of perspectives.
I can't quite agree with Tony Tommasini that VANESSA is an American masterpiece, but I think if the NYCO production taught us anything it is that the piece, in America at least, is here to stay. Like—yes—ADRIANA LECOUVREUR, the music, however sentimental, is just too lovely to throw it away. (I could, however, live without Under the Willow Tree.)
I don't doubt that Vanessa is a harder "sing" than Adriana, but the analogy has some usefulness. Barber and Menotti may not have intended V. to be a role for a "mature" singer, but that is what it has inarguably become—its most recent exponents have been Flanigan, Christine Brewer, and Kiri Te Kanawa, none of whom are ingenues. (Is that Renée Fleming on Line 2?) Brenda Lewis, a close friend, has pointed out that you HAVE to be mature to sing the role, because only with the benefit of a depth of life experience can you hope to give shape and meaning to what is a hopelessly two-dimensional character.
Whenever I have to review TOSCA, I end up loving/hating it because the tunes take a week to retreat from the front of my mind. The same wonderful problem occurred after VANESSA—why don't orchestras do the Intermezzo all the time?—even though the contagion was of lesser intensity. Bravo, Sam.
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