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Barber: Vanessa

The Europadisc Review

Barber: Vanessa

Gianandrea Noseda, Nicole Heaston (soprano), J’Nai Bridges (mezzo-soprano), Susan G...

£14.95

Despite the resounding success of its premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on 15 January 1958 (hailed at the time as a sign that ‘American opera is growing up’), Samuel Barber’s Vanessa has not had the smoothest of rides into the core operatic repertoire. The outstanding cast for that first production under the baton of Dmitri Mitropoulos was largely unchanged for the work’s European premiere at the Salzburg Festival seven months later, but the European critics gave the work a markedly frostier reception than had their ecstatic American co... read more

Despite the resounding success of its premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on 15 January 1958 (hailed at the time as a sign that ‘American opera is growing up’), Samuel Barber’s Vanessa has not h... read more

Barber: Vanessa

Barber: Vanessa

Gianandrea Noseda, Nicole Heaston (soprano), J’Nai Bridges (mezzo-soprano), Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano), Matthew Polenzani (tenor), Thomas Hampson (baritone), University of Maryland Concert Choir (chorus), National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center (orchestra)

Despite the resounding success of its premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on 15 January 1958 (hailed at the time as a sign that ‘American opera is growing up’), Samuel Barber’s Vanessa has not had the smoothest of rides into the core operatic repertoire. The outstanding cast for that first production under the baton of Dmitri Mitropoulos was largely unchanged for the work’s European premiere at the Salzburg Festival seven months later, but the European critics gave the work a markedly frostier reception than had their ecstatic American counterparts. More recently, however, Vanessa’s fortunes have been revived, both in live performances and on disc: Leonard Slatkin’s 2002 concert performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and an excellent cast were captured for release on the Chandos label, and more recently Keith Warner’s acclaimed 2018 Glyndebourne production conducted by Jakub Hrůša appeared on DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of Opus Arte.

Now they are joined by a recording issued by the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington DC, on its own label. Like the Slatkin account on Chandos, this is taken from a pair of concert performances, made in January and February 2025, just a couple of weeks before the 47th President of the United States announced controversial plans for the Kennedy Center (including its rebranding) where it was recorded. Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda with a laser-like focus, plenty of rhythmic buoyancy and a superb feeling for Barber’s essentially late-Romantic idiom and instinctive understanding of the human voice, this recording may in time be regarded as evidence of what can be done by artistic institutions before politicians stick their oar in.

Vanessa’s 1958 premiere featured Eleanor Steber in the title role, replacing Sena Jurinac who withdrew just six weeks earlier; something similar happened in Washington, with soprano Nicole Heaston stepping in for the originally planned Sondra Radvanovsky. Ms Heaston may lack Radvanovsky’s sheer vocal heft, but her tonal warmth and sensitivity to Gian Carlo Menotti’s text are in perfect harmony with the overall mood of this performance. As the central character, trapped Havisham-style in time after being jilted by her lover, then thrown and ultimately liberated by the arrival of his son and namesake, she gives a vivid yet tender account of the Act 1 aria ‘Do not utter a word, Anatol’, supported by delicate shading from the NSO’s players.

The other central female role is that of Vanessa’s niece Erika, quickly seduced by the young Anatol but perceptive enough to refuse his proposals of marriage. Mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges is perfect for the part, with a youthful timbre and tonal security throughout her range. Her Act 1 aria ‘Must the winter come so soon?’ is touchingly radiant, and her strength of character is evident throughout, even at the work’s end as she herself sinks into isolation while her aunt rides off into the future with Anatol.

Anatol himself is sung with ringing tones by tenor Matthew Polenzani, a compromised and flawed but nevertheless magnetic and sympathetic character whose upper notes in quieter passages are better realised here than by William Burden on the Slatkin recording. Susan Graham – who sang the role of Erika on the Chandos set – makes a memorable appearance as Vanessa’s judgemental mother, the Old Baroness (Eleanor Steber made a similar transition to this part in her later career). Completing the central cast is baritone Thomas Hampson as the Old Doctor, relishing every moment in his comic episode at the New Year’s ball in Act 2, to the obvious delight of the Kennedy Center audience, one of many instances where the benefits of a live performance are much to the fore. The voice may have lost some of its youthful glory, but Hampson’s gift for characterisation is as strong as ever.

The drama, hinging on the announcement of Vanessa and the young Anatol’s engagement, and Erika’s reaction, reaches its climax in the Act 3 quintet ‘To leave, to break, to find, to keep’, and Noseda manages the pacing and shaping of this trajectory with enormous skill, while the quintet itself becomes a moment of dramatic catharsis delivered with the sort of involvement and unanimity that perhaps only a native cast and performers can bring. Certainly their sense of commitment, and that of the University of Maryland Concert Choir in the crucial chorus scenes, carries this recording to triumphant success. Minor quibbles – a somewhat backward balance for the woodwind against up-front solo voices, and a slightly muddy feel to the congregational hymn at the end of Act 1 – are more than offset by the sparkling atmosphere of the central act (the opera being given in its three-act 1964 revision), and the inexorable sense of dramatic momentum.

Less focused and analytical than the Chandos recording, this NSO account has greater warmth and arguably more overall conviction, and is handsomely presented as a square-shaped hardback book with complete libretto and informative notes, with the discs themselves slipped into the inside covers. Like last week’s release of ‘An American Dream?’, this new Vanessa makes a timely appearance just over a month before this year's American semiquincentennial celebrations, and is another warm recommendation.

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Over the past fortnight, I’ve been bathed in the most glorious, radiant, transformative light. Not the UK’s recent unseasonable heatwave, but the extraordinary vocal polyphony of the Siglo de Oro: the Spanish (and Portuguese) ‘Golden Century’. Extending from the late 15th to the early 17th century, this was a time of remarkable artistic flowering on the Iberian Peninsula, coinciding with the emergence of Spain and Portugal as global imperial powers with extensive colonial territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia. The steady progress of the Reconquista from the late 11th to the late 15th century saw the prevailing Mozarabic liturgical rite replaced by the Roman liturgy; the union of Spain through the 1469 marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, and the subsequent marriage of their daughter Joanna ('the Mad') to the Habsburg Philip the Fair (son of the Holy... read more

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