Reviving ‘Vanessa’

By , New York Magazine’s architecture and classical-music critic   since 2007 and was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2002.
Photo: Carol Rosegg/courtesy of New York City Opera

Mention the composer Samuel Barber to an opera buff with a long memory, and you’ll get a bitter blast about Antony and Cleopatra, the disaster that opened the Met’s Lincoln Center house in 1966. Eight years earlier, though, the composer produced Vanessa, which Met audiences loved and critics praised—and which sank after the Antony debacle. On November 4, City Opera revives the superheated love triangle, with the indomitable Lauren Flanigan in the title role.

Vanessa
New York City Opera; opens November 4.

Reviving ‘Vanessa’