Vanessa (Feb. 1, 1958)

Composer: Samuel Barber
Librettist: Gian Carlo Menotti

Mitropoulos; Steber, Elias, Resnik, Gedda, Tozzi

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Approximate running time: 2 hrs. 0 min.

This broadcast, recorded just two weeks after Vanessa’s Met world premiere, presents the original cast in spectacular form. Eleanor Steber is marvelous as the title heroine, a beautiful woman awaiting the return of her long-lost lover. But the man who arrives is his son, Anatol (a suave Nicolai Gedda). The handsome youth plays a dangerous emotional game of wooing both Vanessa and her niece Erika (an enchanting Rosalind Elias)—with devastating consequences. Regina Resnik stars as the Old Baroness and Giorgio Tozzi is the kind Doctor. Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos gives an impassioned reading of Barber’s superb score.