HOW potent cheap music is, observed Noel Coward. Well, not always.
Samuel Barber’s 1958 opera “Vanessa,” in the new production, is some distance from being cheap, but it’s still a long way from being potent.
The story, loosely inspired by one of Isak Dinesen’s “Seven Gothic Tales,” tells of Vanessa, who waits in misery for 20 years – accompanied only by her niece, Erika, and her taciturn mother, the Baroness – for the return of her married lover, Anatol.
When he does finally turn up, it’s the wrong Anatol – the son of her former lover, now deceased.
The younger Anatol promptly seduces and impregnates Erika, who refuses to marry him. He later marries Vanessa, while Erika is left to repeat history in the family mansion – and Vanessa and young Anatol high-tail it for Paris.
What possibly attracted Michael Kahn, a distinguished director of classic theater, to stage it is the libretto by Barber’s fellow composer (and longtime companion), Gian Carlo Menotti.
This is markedly better than the music, having a sturdy dramatic thrust and atmosphere, with its often-felicitous English text turning such phrases as “he who hungers for the past will be fed lies.”
Barber’s music, here in the shorter 1964 revision, has its romanticized orchestral moments – the melancholy
entr’acte between the last two scenes, for example – but its post-Straussian melodies and formal structure, despite an impressive if old-fashioned final quintet, are cloying.
The opera does – to Menotti’s credit as much as Barber’s – offer decent acting possibilities for its singers, and Lauren Flanigan as Vanessa and Katharine Goeldner in the more interesting role of Erika color their voices and project their personalities with winning skill.
Rosalind Elias, who sang Erika in the original production at the Met, shows a splendid presence as the old Baroness, and Richard Stilwell had just the right sad gusto as the bibulous Doctor. Despite a slightly strained top register, Ryan MacPherson made a personably caddish Anatol.
New York City Opera, New York State Theater, Lincoln Center. (212) 870-5570. Performances through Nov. 17.