Change my mind about Vanessa
I know, as a musical gay boy d’un certain âge I supposed to consider this the great American opera, the equal if not superior to anything by Britten and preferable to any of that atonal garbage from the Continent.
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But I really cannot find anything in Vanessa beyond a lot of campy posturing that evades any dramatic point, set to pretty but terminally bland, vaguely expressive music. To me it represents everything most objectionable in 50s high-middlebrow culture, and particularly the pre-Stonewall closety gay male subculture; better the unpretentious humanity of an Anthony Mann western than this tastefully overblown kitsch.
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Works: Vanessa
