Opera Review: Samuel Barber’s Vanessa at New York City Opera

(Photos by Carol Rosegg)

There is one disclaimer that I think is acceptable–and not only acceptable, but necessary–in performance. That is when a singer, either in recital or in a production of an opera, has come down with an ailment that inhibits the quality of singing that he or she would be capable of otherwise. Not doing this can lead to all kinds of unnecessary and unfounded judgements by the audience, and can bestow unwarranted suspicion upon the singer’s talent and the company’s taste. So it was to great relief that after two hours (and two intermissions) of patchy, scratchy singing by tenor Ryan MacPherson as the central male role of Anatol in the New York City Opera’s current production of Vanessa, the obscure masterpiece by Samuel Barber, that Producing Artistic Director Robin Thompson came out to announce that MacPherson, due to the cold weather, had come down with an allergy and sent his regrets that he would not be able to see out the final act of the performance.

Up until that point, I had was bemoaning to my guest (during the intermissions) that MacPherson sounded weak and hoarse. He had his high notes, but anything on or below the staff was either inaudible or phlegmy. And it made a marked affect not only on the performance, which was mostly strong otherwise, but on the telling of the story, which, for most of us, needed a good first introduction.

The opera’s title suggests that the main character is Vanessa, a lonely Baroness who has been holed up in her mansion, waiting for the love of her youth to return from war, is the main character of the work, although the work itself proves somewhat ambivalent.

Vanessa could be called by two other names. The first is Erika, Vanessa’s niece, who, after tending Vanessa for during her waiting period, gets scorched by her own first love, who happens to be Anatol–the son (by another woman) of Vanessa’s long lost love–who returns to scorn and triumph at the beginning of the opera.

Played with tragic determination by Katharine Goeldner, Erika indeed gets more stage time, and I believe, more sing time than her titular aunt. She becomes the protege, doomed by her distrust of Anatol’s love (he’s a cocky, Don Juany kinda guy, but he does propose to her after having stolen her virginity the first night he flew into town) to repeat in the footsteps of Vanessa. Goeldner sang sharply, and her emotional connection to Erika played up the importance of the character. Her first aria, “Must the winter come so soon,” was truly captivating. By the end of the work, when Vanessa and Anatol–in a wonderfully oedipal plot line–get married and take off for Paris, Erika assumes the position and pledges to live out the rest of her days as Vanessa had done, waiting for her love to return (although, there are a few holes in this particular plot element which I will not go into here). Earlier on in the opera, before she even revealed her name to Anatol, she says she is “Vanessa’s shadow,” and indeed, she turns out to be just that.

The other character that could stake claim to the eponym, is Anatol. Once he arrives, everything is about him. Vanessa warms up to his charms and falls in love with him, at one point even declaring that she had, in fact, been waiting for him all those years and not his father; not sure if this is merely an ego stroke or evidence of exactly how clinically narcissistic Vanessa might be. And Erika’s life is forever in ruin. Not sure whether to trust his offer of marriage–she wants passion from him, but all she seems to be getting is an I do love you, but take it or leave it kind of attitude. She also winds up pregnant–from just one time, boys and girls–and freaks out on the night of V and A’s engagement and runs out to the lake to abort the fetus. How, we are not told, but we do get to see the blood smeared over her dress afterward.

And had MacPherson been in great voice, the character could literally have soared. When he sings, it is usually in duet with Vanessa (I’ll get to Flanigan in a sec). And his arrogance and virility is meant to be a match for the impassioned desires of both women. I thought his voice thoroughly pedestrian until the announcement came. I would hope to hear him some other night, though the performance has still left me with a question about his gifts.

Vanessa is, psychologically speaking, a dissociative borderline personality disorder case. She’s spent twenty years waiting night after night in front of her window, long after most of us would have moved on, found a new lover and started a family. And she’s so obsessed with her own happiness that she accepts the semi-incestuous love of her lover’s son, she is broadly unaware of the needs and desires of people around her–particularly she seems to be clueless about why her own mother (played frustratingly quiet by Rosalind Elias; was she sick too?) won’t speak to her anymore–and she resides in her own world of make-believe that is invented only to satisfy her stunted emotional want. Lauren Flanigan fit the bill, and with huge voice.

I wouldn’t say that Flanigan’s voice is perfect. There’s something about these truly massive instruments that feels out of control, and maybe it must be to some degree, at least, in order to be that big. But there’s something a little too broad about the vibrato, perhaps, that gives me pause. She also managed to Tori Amos a lot of her mid-voice vowels, umlauting many of her schwas (mind you, the opera is in English). Otherwise, she’s got a rare set of pipes, and she does control most of the singing with great discipline. Her voice, at its zenith, hits you in the chest and tickles the hair in your ears. And Flanigan’s a big, curvy woman; she’s got an hourglass. Her voluptuous figure betrays the emotional unattractiveness of the character. And if we use size of voice to determine who that main character is, as Britten may have done himself, then this Vanessa truly deserves her title.

Veteran Richard Stilwell delivered scene stealing moments throughout the opera as the good old family doctor. Kinda hot for an old guy.

NY native, Christopher Jackson was the sacrificial tenor to follow MacPherson. This was no “a career is made” occasion. It wasn’t even his debut with the company. Even this year her played George Hancock in Margaret Garner. He showed a little insecurity in the staging, which is understandable. His voice is quite nice, and he could almost match Flanigan’s firey bellows: almost. A little more confidence in him and he could be great.

Anne Manson brilliantly lead the orchestra through some of the most vibrant and psychologically attuned music written for the opera since Wozzeck, which was surely Barber’s model here. The music is less leitmotivic (i.e. such and such motive equals such and such character) than it simply shapes the psychological and emotional moment on stage. The opera opens with three big strokes ascending from the depths of the orchestra, that soon give way to a flurry of upper register chromatic smearing. This sets the expressionistic mood on which the rest of the opera rides. For Barber, this is edgy territory. There are wondrous affects with off-stage instruments and choruses. Some polytonal juxtapositions in the way of Ives. And then, some richly tonal passages that are oblique enough in their vocabulary to sustain a truly modern feel. It’s a marvelous operatic work by an American composer; a rare achievement to say the least, and one that should be realized far more often.

“Vanessa” runs tonight (Nov. 8th) and repeats this month the 10th, 14th and 17th at New York City Opera.

Bonus Link: Here’s T-Bone Tommasini’s review in The Times. He’s spot on about reexamining Vanessa as a work of a more modernist sensibility. And he agrees with us about Anne Manson’s hot conducting. Word.