Met Opera to Broadcast 1958 Performance of Samuel Barber's Vanessa

Eleanor Steber
The Saturday matinee broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera on January 23 will be Samuel Barber's Vanessa, first transmitted on February 1, 1958. Classic 99.1 KFUO-FM will carry the broadcast beginning at 12:00 noon (CT).

Margaret Juntwait, host of the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network broadcasts, reports that

This performance was originally broadcast live just two weeks after the opera's triumphant world premiere at the old Met on January 15, 1958. You’ll be riveted by this haunting story about the tragic cost of idealistic love and self-deception. It's brought to life by some of the brightest stars in Met history: Eleanor Steber in the title role, with Rosalind Elias, Nicolai Gedda, Regina Resnik, and Giorgio Tozzi -- conducted by the dynamic Maestro Dimitri Mitropoulos. During intermission, we’ll hear some of the stars reminisce about being part of the world premiere.

In a January 12, 1958, New York Times article called "Birth Pangs of a First Opera" Samuel Barber describes the protracted process of getting the completed libretto from Gian-Carlo Menotti, who agreed to write the libretto in 1954. Barber says that "Waiting for the finished libretto required the patience of Job." After the Menotti's writing stalled after the first scene while he and Barber where on the Maine seacoast, Barber says that he

refused to write a note until the complete libretto was finished.

My tactic succeeded brilliantly. It made him so nervous that he sat on a rock by another sea -- the Mediterranean this time -- every morning until, by summer's end, what I think is perhaps the finest and most chiseled of his libretti was finished.

Barber says that with the libretto finished he played Vanessa for Rudolph Bing and three other representatives of the Met. Barber says that "I decided to dispense with singers and sing all the parts, in some fashion, myself. This was not easy, even in a love duet."

Barber says that only a few weeks before the debut Sena Jurinac, who had been cast in the title role, fell ill and canceled her entire Met season. Barber says

I suddenly found myself without a Vanessa. There was consternation in the opera house and talk of a year's postponement.

Two day's later Mr. Bing phoned. "I feel somewhat calmer," he said. "Can you see Eleanor Steber?" It was a meeting of old friends. I cannot adequately extol her gallantry in undertaking this difficult role in so short a time.