Samuel Barber’s Vanessa at Glyndebourne
20th July 2018
Vanessa is being revived in years after decades of European neglect. Its first reception in 1958 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York was immensely enthusiastic; Newsweek reported that Barber's presence was met with ’the full-throated roar usually reserved for prima donnas’, while the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos exclaimed: ‘At last, an American grand opera!’. Later that year, the composer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. When the work travelled to the Salzburg Festival, however, the lush neo-romanticism of Vanessa was dismissed by European critics in an era of avant-garde idioms as ‘an opera for the public and not for intellectuals’.
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Audiences and opera houses are now rediscovering its immense beauty and deep humanism with female experience at its centre. In a similar way to Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which premiered just four months later, Vanessa is a story of erotic obsession.
Abandoned by her lover Anatol, Vanessa retreats from the world. With only her mother and niece Erika for company, she drapes all mirrors in black cloth so that in her mind she will never age. A man called Anatol arrives. However, he is not Vanessa’s former lover, but his son. Anatol is handsome and charming and quickly seduces Erika. She becomes pregnant with his child but soon loses interest and leaves him. Following Erika’s rejection, he turns to Vanessa, who, believing him to be his father's younger self, is instantly charmed. The night Vanessa and Anatol formally announce their engagement, Erika disappears from the house to abort the baby in the snow. Wrapped up in her own self-deceit, Vanessa leaves the mansion with the young Anatol, leaving Erika who waits for her true love.
Olivier Award-winning director Keith Warner (below) makes his Glyndebourne debut with this production which promises to bring out the psychological tensions of Barber’s heart-breaking domestic drama. Jakub Hrůša conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Chorus and a cast which includes Emma Bell (Vanessa), Virginie Verrez (Erika) and Edgaras Montvidas (Anatol).
Keith Warner on his new production of Vanessa
Dates and timesSunday 5 August, 4.45 pmTuesday 7 August, 5.20 pmFriday 10 August, 5.20 pmSunday 12 August, 4.45 pmTuesday 14 August, 5.20 pm >> live streaming in cinemas and onlineFriday 17 August, 5.20 pmSunday 19 August, 4.45 pmWednesday 22 August, 5.20 pmFriday 24 August, 5.20 pmSunday 26 August, 4.45 pm
Tickets and more info at glyndebourne.com/vanessa
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