First, be sure to read Robert Gordon's long comment on my previous Vanessa posting. Second, reader MD sends a link to a Guardian article about Barber, Menotti, and Vanessa that is well worth reading. It is interesting that as of when the article was written, none of the biographies of the two went so far as to say they were a homosexual couple. This seems at once...strange....given their decades of living together, but perhaps also typical of their generation.
One or two final thoughts from me: perhaps the piece sounds significantly better with a bigger orchestra and more rehearsal time. And just what is the story with niece Erika? There is no mention of Vanessa having a sibling, and at 20 Erika is exactly the right age to be Vanessa's child by Anatol I.
2 comments:
...perhaps the piece sounds significantly better with a bigger orchestra and more rehearsal time.
I might be inclined to agree with you--but about ten years back I saw a musically very fine performance of Eugene Onegin with an equally undersized string section. Of course, it could be that Tchaikovsky's string writing is more active than Barber's; sustained lyrical string writing is the hardest for a small string section to get away with.
I've seen a whole bunch of performances at WEO (formerly Berkeley Opera) with very small orchestras, and as you note, it's usually not at all an issue.
They did an impressive Bluebeard's Castle with a tiny orchestra a few years ago!
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