Opera #2: Vanessa

Vanessa
Music by Samuel Barber, libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti.

Barber is certainly a more recognizable name than Argento, and I would hope that Menotti's name rings a bell as well. Samuel Barber is arguably one of the premier American composers and mainly worked in orchestral music and art song. Vanessa was his first (and more or less only) opera. I'd at least heard of this one in college, since "Must the winter come so soon" was a pretty standard piece for aspiring mezzos. What is really interesting about this is the fact the Menotti wrote the libretto. If you have not heard of him, Gian Carlo Menotti was a pretty major American composer of opera himself, and wrote some of my absolute favorites, namely The Medium and Amahl and the Night Visitors (seasonal!). He was also Barber's "lifelong companion," as they say. Barber was a big fan of opera but just never found a libretto he was happy with, so finally Menotti decided to write one for him himself. It premiered at the Met in 1958.

Vanessa is a former great beauty, now in her forties, who has lived the life of a recluse for the past 20 years, apparently because of a love affair gone wrong. She has no visitors, wears a veil, and covers all mirrors and portraits in her house. She lives with her niece, Erika (about 20), and her mother, "The Baroness," who refuses to speak to her. When the opera begins, Erika is arranging the household for an important guest, who Vanessa is awaiting anxiously. Apparently, the guest is her former lover, but instead of himself arriving, it is his son, also named Anatole, who appears. His father has died, and he is curious about the woman who haunted his father.

Almost immediately upon arriving, Anatole seduces Erika, but then declares his affection for Vanessa herself. Erika, nursing a fairy tale idea of romance, disagrees with Anatole's more worldly approach, and so turns down his proposal of marriage, despite her feelings for him. She decides that since Vanessa has been waiting for so long, living in solitude and ostensibly "saving herself," that it is only fair she be the one to win Anatole's hand. In good order, Anatole and Vanessa announce their engagement, subsequent with our discovery that Erika is now carrying Anatole's child. She rushes out into a bitter winter night, apparently to end her life. She is found, hours later, passed out in the snow. Upon recovering, she admits to her grandmother, The Baroness, that she was with child, but is no longer. Her grandmother leaves the room without a word, and it is clear that she will never speak to Erika again, either.

A month passes (we are told). Anatole and Vanessa are married and preparing to move to Paris. Vanessa is haunted by what that night, and constantly asks both Anatole and Erika if there was something between them. They, of course, deny this. Vanessa tells Erika that the house is hers, and after the newlyweds leave, Erika covers all the mirrors and portraits, locks the gate, and dons a veil, declaring that now it is her turn to wait.

Clearly, a properly "operatic" plot. Since Barber is, like Argento, a "contemporary" composer, we again have a work that is not really given to memorable melodies, or even arias in the traditional sense. The mostly conversational nature of the work leads me to believe that it's probably much more interesting/enjoyable to actually watch a production, rather than simply listen to a recording. The music is the real star here. It moves from solemn to playful to melodramatic in a matter of seconds, and definitely gives a mood of anxiety and impending doom. I really liked the concepts at play here - the supposition that Vanessa's doomed love affair played itself out in perhaps the same way that Erika's does, and that therefore there is hope that Erika herself will be rescued someday by the shadow of her former lover. They're almost like Miss Havisham, with all her clocks stopped, still in her wedding dress. The Baroness hovers over them, disapproving, like a guilty conscience, and they wait with growing anxiety for the day when they will be rescued and can revisit a perhaps lost youth. Kind of what we all want, isn't it?