Glyndebourne, 2018
Jakub Hrůša, Keith Warner, Emma Bell, Virginie Verrez, Edgaras Montvidas, Rosalind Plowright, Donnie Ray Albert, William Thomas, Romanas Kudriašovas
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
I guess there are two ways of looking at Samuel Barber's Vanessa. On the one hand it's a rather reactionary, stuffy, old-fashioned romantic melodrama, that even in 1958 when it was composed was a backward look at a bygone age, a refusal to accept that music, drama and opera had moved on in a different direction. The other way to look at it is, well, that it's still all those things, but just to accept the work for what it is, an alternative approach that still embraces the traditional form, and respect it for the quality of its composition.
On a second viewing of this production however, I find myself similarly split on the quality and content of the work itself. On the one hand, a second closer listening does demonstrate that the work is not just a lush easy-listening composition in the style of a bygone age, but there are elements of dissonance within it hinting at darker elements that are not make explicit on the surface of the drama. The drama however doesn't stand up to close scrutiny on a second viewing and the observations it makes on love are really little more than banalities.
At its heart, that opera centres on a simple plot where Vanessa is expecting the return of Anatol, a former lover she has not seen in 20 years. It's not Anatol who turns up at their north country mansion however, but his son also called Anatol. Initially shocked, Vanessa however falls for the memory of her Anatol, not realising that the younger Anatol has already had an affair with Vanessa's niece Erika. Erika however has conflicted feelings for Anatol and doubts his love, but when she discovers she is pregnant by Anatol and that he and Vanessa are now engaged to be married, it causes a crisis and an attempted suicide.
What becomes clear is that if there is anything to be made of the suggestion of sinister undercurrents that Samuel Barber brings to Gian Carlo Menotti's libretto, it's all brought out by Keith Warner in his reworking of the drama and his impressive visual interpretation of things that are scarcely hinted at, never mind not explicitly brought out in the drama. Dressing it up as a Hitchcockian mystery really lends the work a lot more interest and intrigue than Vanessa seems to merit.
What prevents Hitchcock's films from appearing old-fashioned is the attention paid to the darker aspects of human nature. Barber and Menotti's characters have none of that depth, there's no insights other than those related to love, jealousy and unspoken, repressed passions. Warner seeks to use those vacancies of true personality and behaviour to hint at deeper mysteries and secrets. He wholly invents a mysterious and possibly taboo origin for Erika, he suggests another forbidden interracial romance affair in the past between the Old Baroness and the doctor as a young servant that is also regarded as taboo in the social order.
As much as Warner's production and reworking of the material works in favour of making Vanessa a little more interesting as a drama, from another point of view the period setting also works against it. The sheer elegance of the costume design, the period detail and the impressive technical approach are impressive, Warner using mirrors and projections to add layers, suggest hidden secrets, show reflections of the past and glimpses of forbidden passions behind the scenes. At the same time however, the period setting also serves to make it all feel horribly mannered and old-fashioned.
There's a scene early in the opera where Erika reads a passage from a romantic novel with little in the way of feeling. Vanessa snatches it and shows her how someone who has known love would express it. Barber appears to do the same with Menotti's libretto, ramping up the melodrama but never finding any true human feeling behind it. It appears that Keith Warner does much the same in this production for Glyndebourne, and makes the best possible case for what they believe is a neglected work. There is much to admire in the opera, but a second visit only reveals that it's all so much smoke and mirrors, and there's not really much depth to Vanessa at all.
The cast and the creative team would beg to differ and their belief in the work is evident not just from the performances and the high production values of this Glyndebourne 2018 recording, but they all make a strong case for it in the interviews included on the Blu-ray release. The opera also looks and sounds great in the High Definition presentation, with stereo and surround mixes that bring out that greater detail in Jakub Hrůša's conducting of Barber's score.
Links: Glyndebourne
