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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > The Opera House > NY Times: Overview of Samuel Barber's VANESSA
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Author Topic: NY Times: Overview of Samuel Barber's VANESSA  (Read 119 times)
Reiner Torheit
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« on: 15:37:52, 04-11-2007 »
The NY Times has this overview of Samuel Barber's VANESSA - an opera which is forgotten even in its native land, and wasn't ever really known enough to forget in Europe.  Why did it fail in Europe?  Suggestions range from a "backward-looking" neo-romantic score (of, errr, exactly the kind Richard Strauss was writing...),  or even accusations of homophobia towards Barber....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/arts/music/04davi.html?ref=arts

(as always with NY Times pieces, this link will only be free-to-view for a short time, so click now or miss it...)
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
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C Dish
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« Reply #1 on: 15:44:16, 04-11-2007 »
This is the opera touted as an example of the historical short-sightedness of the Pulitzer Prize committee -- because it won the Prize, has since been forgotten, and a contemporaneous work of more enduring popularity received no recognition at all: Bernstein's West Side Story.

You can see why Vanessa has for political reasons been useful, without anyone actually listening to it.
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inert fig here
Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #2 on: 19:57:41, 04-11-2007 »
Thanks for posting this, Reiner; an interesting read. I don't know the opera, but enjoyed hearing, earlier this year, Antony and Cleopatra. I see that there are two recent recordings of Vanessa, on Naxos and Chandos, the latter with Christine Brewer and Susan Graham.

 

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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #3 on: 20:05:46, 04-11-2007 »
There was a live performance at the Barbican accompanying the Chandos recording, and very enjoyable it was too.

Sorry, not a constructive comment about the opera's popularity or lack thereof, but it was a good concert!
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #4 on: 20:09:43, 04-11-2007 »
I did like the comment Callas was supposed to have made when she turned the role down: The puzzled Callas supposedly asked later, “How can I possibly sing a role that begins with the words ‘too many sauces?’ ”
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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