*Vanessa,* May 21 2026

Karen and I saw *Vanessa* at Heartbeat Opera on May 20, 2026. This was one of the cultural events I was most looking forward to this season, for three reasons.

First, I've loved *Vanessa* since the 80s. I think it was one of the first opera recordings I bought on CD. An amusing side story: my friend Bill is an opera fanatic, even more fanatical than I. He and his wife had me over for a listening party sometime around 1989. I browsed through his shelves looking for a recording we both had. His collection was arranged alphabetically and there was *Vanessa* under B for Samuel Barber.

ME: Oh, *Vanessa*! I love *Vanessa.*

BILL: [no reply]

ME: What do you think of it?

BILL: [pause] I don't often get in the mood for something so overheated.

That's exactly what I love about it, it's a melodrama with the flame turned up very high.

Second, I see everything Heartbeat Opera has done over the last few years. They've established their brand taking well-known operas and paring them down to the essentials, both in terms of length and number of people involved. *Vanessa* is a three-act opera, about two and a half hours long, scored for five principal singers, three or four servants or similar, a chorus, and a full orchestra. The Heartbeat production was 100 minutes with no intermission and scored for the five principal singers, no chorus, and an instrumental ensemble of seven people.

And third, this same production was done last summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the Berkshires. Heartbeat was approached by them and asked to present something there, the first opera ever to be performed there. It was the hit of the festival and I was thrilled to hear it was being revived in New York this spring.

It was just as exciting as I wanted it to be. We got a bigger impact by condensing the narrative and the arrangement by Dan Schosberg was brilliant, he always does an extraordinary job. He scored it for violin, cello, clarinet/saxophone, trumpet, trombone, harp, and piano. I was thrilled to see a harpist included in that septet. I would have included a flute and/or a viola but I bet they settled on seven people for budgetary reasons. They were sensational and produced a wide range of colors. I didn't remember the opera having so many interludes - - I think there were three or four, often with nothing happening onstage. The interlude during the first interaction between Erika and Anatol crackled with bottled-up sexual tension.

The show was directed by R. B. Schlather. He really knew what he was doing. I'd never seen such impactful use of lighting in a show, opera or otherwise. Clearly he and lighting designer Yuki Nakase Link worked together closely to make the lighting and shadows central to the drama. The set was a white wall and the occasional chair - - the primary element of the design was the lighting and shadows. The opera opened with Erika sitting on a chair against the back wall. A huge shadow loomed over her (Vanessa's shadow) with Erika's head framed by the shadow's fingers. It was a thrilling and spooky way to start things off. There were three or four moments in the show when Erika was framed by a bright white rectangle, something that always gave extra punch to the scene.

The central characters in the opera are Vanessa and her niece Erika. They live in a remote country estate with Vanessa's mother, the Baroness. Vanessa had a lover named Anatol about twenty years before. He abandoned her. The opera starts with her waiting for Anatol to return, somehow she knows he's on his way. A man shows up and Vanessa has a fabulous aria, "Do not utter a word," when she tells him he doesn't want to look at her unless he still loves her. She's aged of course and she wants him to leave if he can't promise that he loves her. The man turns out to be Anatol's son, also named Anatol. Vanessa flips out, Erika takes over as hostess, and the night ends with Erika and Anatol in bed together.

Anatol aligns himself with Vanessa because (unlike Erika) she seems unaware of or unconcerned by his considerable faults. Erika is the primary motor of the drama, she's by far the most complex character, things really catch fire when she's onstage.

I won't give you any spoilers but it ends with an unbelievably brilliant quintet for Vanessa, Erika, Anatol, the Baroness, and the family doctor. Part of what makes the quintet so great is the text - - the libretto is by Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber's partner.

To leave, to break

To find, to keep

To stay, to wait

To hope, to dream

To weep and remember

To love is all of this

And none of it is love

The light is not the sun

Nor the tide the moon

The Heartbeat performance literally took my breath away, something that only happens every few years.

Karen thought a big problem in the opera is that Anatol is (to use her word) a cipher. You don't understand why these two women have totally upended their lives for a guy who is appealing but not really all that. It's like both Vanessa and Erika said, "I'm going to flip my lid for whatever guy walks through that door."

This production made the character of Vanessa more intriguing than I had imagined her. She made me think of Sally in the musical *Follies* - - they're both building their own version of reality and entrenching themselves deeper into it as the show progresses.

I see Vanessa (and Sally) as part of a noble tradition of mid-century gay men creating a female character who is a middle-aged glamorpuss, a woman whose only purpose is to suffer. Of course she's suffering over a man - - it wouldn't be as satisfying to give her a terminal disease or an addiction of some kind. I tuned into this frequency a few weeks before when I saw Poulenc's *La Voix Humaine* at the Philharmonic, she's the same kind of lady. On deeper analysis I see that Tennessee Williams created the gold standard on this archetype, his plays are littered with women that fit this description and generations of actresses have made a hearty meal out of them.

Heartbeat had Inna Dukach in the role of Vanessa. She gave a spectacular performance but her voice was a little too light for the role, especially in the lower range. This part needs a real dramatic soprano, or someone who does a better job of imitating one. Karen said this: "I thought Inna Dukach's voice 'added' something but not in a good way. I thought the voice itself sounded unhinged, not up to the task, which was a bit unsettling."

Erika is the most interesting character and Heartbeat had the stellar Kelsey Lauritano in the part. Gorgeous singing all night long and a wonderful sense of when to hold in the drama and when to let it flood out of her. I'd love to hear her again.

Anatol was played by tenor Freddie Ballentine. He did his best in a two-dimensional role, he did a good job of conveying the appealing and smarmy sides of the character. I was a little bothered by his use of falsetto in a couple of passages - - a tenor can do a crafty job of going up there without betraying the fact that he's singing in falsetto. Ballentine didn't do that, he sounded hooty and thin. I was thrilled to hear him go to town on the high C flat at the crest of the quintet. Maybe he was holding back all night so he could deliver on that one note.

The Baroness and the doctor were played by Mary Phillips and Joshua Jeremiah. They didn't have much to do but they did it well. They're small roles but essential, especially for the quintet that I will not shut up about! Here's a wonderful production from Menotti's Spoleto Festival in 1979. It has the great Johanna Meier as Vanessa (she was an Elektra and Isolde, which is just the kind of voice I want in this part) and the equally great Katherine Ciesinski as Erika. The quintet starts 1:13:14.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLVWMRwSCxg