Williamstown Theatre Festival in North Adams
Music by Samuel Barber, libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti
Arranged by Jacob Ashworth and Dan Schlosberg
Directed by R. B. Schlather
“Must the winter come so soon?”
When Erica, the niece of Vanessa, asks the above question early in the first act, its meaning is not as clear as when she reprises it at the end of the opera that Williamstown Theatre Festival is presenting at its new North Adams Annex site. This version of the opera is produced by Heartbeat Opera and has a reduced orchestra and no chorus, just the five principal characters, all played by very talented singers: Inna Dukach plays Vanessa, Ori Marcu plays Erika, Mary Phillips is The Baroness (Vanessa’s mother), Roy Hage plays Anatol, Joshua Jeremiah is The Doctor. The opera is in English, but there are supertitles to aid the audience in understanding what is being sung.
The story: More than 20 years prior, Vanessa, a noblewoman, had an affair with a married man named Anatol who left her and has never been heard from since. Now she has a communication announcing the imminent arrival of Anatol. When he arrives, it is clear that he is not the same man but is actually the son of her ex-lover. Even so, she falls in love with him, as does her niece Erika. Hence the conflict and the plot.
This opera was first produced by the Metropolitan Opera in 1958 with Eleanor Steber in the title role and Rosalind Elias as Erika. Both women made incredible hits in this work, as did Nicolai Gedda as their lover and Giorgio Tozzi as the old Doctor. (Steber, by the way, spent her later years as a resident of Great Barrington.)
Inna Dukach had a bit of trouble being understood, so everyone was grateful for the supertitles. Ori Marcu did not suffer the same difficulty. Neither did Mary Phillips as the Baroness or Jack Hage as the young Anatol. The clearest and cleanest diction, however, belonged to Joshua Jeremiah, who made every single word resound with perfection. The overall impact of the work, reduced from three acts to one, was clearly what Barber and Menotti had in mind when they wrote this Pulitzer Prize-winning work. Though very popular and successful at the time in the United States, it was not a success in Europe, where operatic snobbishness took its toll.
There aren’t many opportunities to see this work, its more recent obscurity keeping it from performance. At WTF, the opera ties in with their unspoken theme of Tennessee Williams’ movement into a new area or style of writing with his “Camino Real,” which the company has presented this summer. Baronesses are distant from our homegrown reality, and there are two in this vitally American opera: Vanessa and her mother. The women do not speak as the Baroness has never forgiven Vanessa for her illicit affair. When Erika becomes involved in much the same way, the Baroness cuts the girl out of her life in the same way she did her own child. Phillips gets the most possible out of her character’s self-imposed distance from the other women involved in the story, and she sings her heart out beautifully.
There is no set, just a white wall on which the characters’ shadows are seen. Four chairs make up the visuals. The lighting is white, the costumes are basically black, and the very black-and-white story is amplified by these simple, very modern visuals.
This is not the “Vanessa” I remember from my youth, but it is a very good show with modern music and a libretto that still makes sense in our times. Morality holds the story together as Anatol stretches its boundaries. Hage may sing well and move well, but his character is still despicable, and that gives the opera a special edge. Even Jeremiah’s fine Doctor has his flaws. I wondered for the first time if the two gay authors felt that straight men were on the despicable side of life. It really doesn’t matter. This is a fine show to see and hear, especially with the excellent musicians on stage making the most out of Barber’s excellent score.
“Vanessa” has one more weekend of performances at The Annex, 245 State Road, North Adams, MA. For information and tickets, call (413) 458-3253 or visit Williamstown Theatre Festival’s website.
