Noseda, NSO continue string of inventive programming with probing “Vanessa”

(L to R) Susan Graham, J’Nai Bridges, Nicole Heaston, Matthew Polenzani, and Thomas Hampson sang in Barber’s “Vanessa” Thursday night, with Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra. Photo: Scott Suchman
With last June’s extraordinary Otello, Gianandrea Noseda first fulfilled his promise to perform a complete opera in concert each season with the National Symphony Orchestra. Thursday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, he continued the tradition by turning to his favorite American composer, Samuel Barber, for a tense, shadow-filled rendition of Vanessa. This opera, which won Barber the Pulitzer Prize in 1958, is still rarely performed: exceptions include Santa Fe Opera in 2016 and Washington National Opera back in 2002, with Kiri Te Kanawa in the title role.
Noseda and the NSO first offered a moment of musical prayer for the 67 victims of the accident involving a passenger plane and military helicopter Wednesday night, not far down the Potomac River from the Kennedy Center. Acknowledging the shock and sadness felt by all Washingtonians, the musicians gave an emotional reading of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Violins, violas, and cellos each took a turn with the surging, lamenting main melody of the piece, leaving the hall in rapt silence.
Returning after a somber pause, Noseda then launched into the dissonant opening of Vanessa. Gian Carlo Menotti set his taut libretto in a manor house in rural Denmark, where Vanessa has been waiting for over twenty years for her lost love, Anatol, to return for her. For whatever shame happened in the past, her mother, the Old Baroness, does not deign to speak to Vanessa, but Vanessa loves her devoted niece, Erika, who is around 20 years old and lives with them, like a daughter.
When Vanessa asks Erika to read to her in the first scene, Erika chooses Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, a sign perhaps that the family relationships in this story are not exactly out in the open. At least not yet. Shortly after, an Anatol arrives who turns out to be the lost lover’s son, and he sets about seducing both aunt and niece. Erika causes the miscarriage of the child she conceives from a night of passion with Anatol, and then Vanessa and Anatol, now married, leave for Paris. Now the Old Baroness refuses to speak to Erika, sealing her shame.
Noseda planned this performance with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. When she withdrew for personal reasons, some time ago, Nicole Heaston stepped in. Heaston’s more lyric soprano, heard to great advantage as Liù in Turandot in 2022, sounded beautiful but lacked some of the dramatic wattage needed for this role. (Noseda’s decision to perform the 1964 three-act revision of the score meant that Vanessa’s skating aria from the original version of the opera, “Our Arms Entwined,” with its coloratura escapades and high D, was off the table.)
Mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges made an impeccable Erika, filled with poignant regret in the Act I piece “Must the winter come so soon?” Bridges produced some searing top notes as well, providing much of the treble power in the ensemble scenes. Matthew Polenzani’s ardent tenor suited the heroic side of Anatol, but he had trouble lightening his upper range at softer dynamics in a way that could carry in the unfavorable acoustic of the Concert Hall.
Two veteran opera stars rounded out this fine cast, beginning with the viperous Old Baroness of mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. The role seemed unfamiliar to her, with a missed entrance at one point, and it was not clear why she did not appear on stage for her brief involvement in the opening scene. Her still potent voice carried with an electric edge, and her imperious side-eye withered souls.
Baritone Thomas Hampson proved equally effective as the Doctor, an old family friend of Vanessa’s. Some of the baritone’s towering vocal presence may have faded, but his onstage charm certainly has not, making the character’s bibulous antics in the New Year’s Eve Ball rather a delight. Two recent alumni of Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artists program, baritone Jonathan Bryan and bass-baritone Samuel Weiser had fine turns in comprimario roles.
The University of Maryland Concert Choir, directed by Jason Max Ferdinand, brought considerable poise to the two brief choral sections of the score. Their offstage hymn in the Act II interlude, lightly accompanied by organ, set a rural liturgical tone, followed by a raucous New Year’s Eve Ball scene, during which they were placed in the chorister balcony above the stage.
Noseda led a penetrating exploration of this psychologically complex score, drawing out many charming solos from the principal musicians. The New Year’s Eve Ball, in particular, roiled with textural variety: a large “onstage” ensemble was placed just offstage to the left, behind two open doors. Associate concertmaster Ying Fu went to the corner of the stage to play with them, and the folksy dance music turned unhinged with the sounds of Iwo Jedynecki’s accordion mixed into it.
Act III reached the greatest musical heights, beginning with the lush Intermezzo, featuring mournful solos from oboe and other woodwinds, accompanied with fragile sounds from the harp. The final quintet, “To leave, to break,” is one of Barber’s worthiest achievements, a showpiece that allowed the listener the chance to review the five glorious principal voices of this all-star cast.
Vanessa will be repeated 8 p.m. Saturday. kennedy-center.org