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.
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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Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
