Tag: Samuel Barber

~ Author: Oberon

Saturday May 24th, 2025 matinee – I hadn’t originally planned to go to a performance of John Adams’ Antony & Cleopatra, but some singers I especially like were in the cast, so I got a score desk – even though I was scoreless – for today’s matinee. My previous experiences with the composer’s operas have both disappointed (though the second was enthralling for the first 40 minutes); you can read about my reaction to The Death of Klinghoffer here and to El Niño here.

The Met’s first incarnation of the Shakespearean tale of Antony and Cleopatra was the opera by Samuel Barber which opened the New Met in 1966. In the late summer of that year, I had made my first solo trip to New York City in order to buy tickets to some of the performances in the first few weeks of the season, and Antony & Cleopatra was on my list. 

On the evening of September 16th, 1966, in my little room in the little town, I was tuned in for the live broadcast of the new opera. I was on pins and needles because the Met Orchestra had announced an impending strike; they’d agreed to play the opening night as it was drawing international attention in the music world. Luminaries had flown in from other nations, and Lady Bird Johnson was to be the guest of honor. For two acts, I was feeling more and more certain that the performances I’d bought tickets for would never take place: rumors indicated that the standoff could not be resolved, and that both sides were standing firm. Then, before the start of Act III, Sir Rudolf Bing appeared before the gold curtain to announce that a settlement had been reached and to welcome the musicians back “as friends”. I ran screaming thru the house; my mother thought – not for the first time – that I was deranged. 

On December 1st, 1966, I saw the last Met performance of the Barber Antony & Cleopatra to date. I’d learned a lot of the music from repeated playings of the reel-to-reel tape I had made of the opening night broadcast, and I was thrilled to experience the voices of Leontyne Price, Justino Diaz, Jess Thomas, Ezio Flagello, and Rosalind Elias in this music ‘live‘; I was able to silently sing along with them much of the time. 

Though the Met never revived the opera, a production given at the Juilliard School, staged by Gian Carlo Menotti and conducted by James Conlon, kept much of the music intact, whilst introducing a love duet for the title-characters. Then, in 2009, the New York City Opera presented a concert performance of the Barber opera at Carnegie Hall, with Lauren Flanigan and Teddy Tahu Rhodes in the leading roles. Read about it here. 

In the ensuing years, I’ve kept favorite passages of the opera in my mind: not just the big themes and the weighty arias, but the delicious (and later cut) scene for the eunuch slave Mardian and Cleopatra’s handmaidens, full of one-liners; the haunting, poetic beauty of Antony’s young attendant Eros’s suicide (“Thus do I escape the sorrow of Antony’s death...”), and most especially the opera’s original ending, with Charmian finishing Cleopatra’s last line, “What? Should I stay…?” “…in this vile world?  Now boast ye, Death, for in thy bosom lies a lass unparalleled…your crown’s awry! I’ll mend it, then play til Doomsday...” as intoned by the sumptuous voice of Rosalind Elias. And of course, the glorious sound of Leontyne Price is forever bound to the music of Cleopatra.

Enough nostalgia, and forgive me for rambling on. 

So this afternoon, I am sitting alone in the great darkened hall that had reverberated to the Barber score some sixty years ago, hoping to be similarly captivated by the new Adams opera. As it turned out, I was far more fascinated with the orchestral writing than with the vocal. The composer had written a very long program note, but the print was so small I could not read it. Even while the players were tuning and warming up in the pit, the sounds of such instruments as celeste, harmonium, harpsichord, mandolin, glockenspiel, vibraphone, tam-tam, flexatone (which creates glissando effects), and numberless bells, chimes, and drums, teased my ear. Adams put all of these to cunning use, creating textures that sustained my interest throughout the 90-minute first act.

The composer reportedly stipulates that amplification of the singing be used when his operas are presented. It’s OK by me, but the mixing board (taking up one of the parterre boxes) sometimes allowed the voices to be covered by the orchestra despite the singers being miked. A few times, the lower range of Julia Bullock (Cleopatra) took on a reverb feeling from over-amplification. I also noted that the cast’s diction was not always clear.

A restless orchestral prelude opens the opera, wherein Antony (Gerald Finley, the superb baritone) ignites Cleopatra’s fury when he tells her he must return to Rome due to the death of this wife, Fulvia. Between un-interesting vocal writing and patches where the singers were covered by orchestral volume, this scene was basically expendable. 

A noisy interlude takes us to Rome, where Antony is greeted coolly by his ‘boss’, Caesar (the clear, lyrical tenor Paul Appleby). To patch things up between the two men, it is suggested that Antony marry Caesar’s sister, Octavia. Agrippa, the match-maker (sung by Jarrett Ott, whose clear diction was a joy) gives way to Enobarbus (that superb basso Alfred Walker) whose description of Cleopatra sailing on the Cydnus is more a sung narrative than a melodious “aria”. 

Back in Alexandria, Cleopatra’s voicing of “O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!” is no match for Samuel Barber’s setting of the text, which Leontyne Price savoured so smoulderingly. Told by Eros (Brenton Ryan) of Antony’s marriage to Octavia sets off a wild reaction from Cleopatra, though it is expressed more by the orchestra than by Ms. Bullock’s parlando and her furious song, which goes on too long…though finely rendered by the soprano.

After an orchestral interlude, a big, beaty, turbulent theme is launched as Octavia (the plush-toned mezzo Elizabeth DeShong) cannot decide between loyalty to her brother Caesar and the appeal of Antony. Tired of her vacillating, Antony divorces her on the spot and rushes back Cleopatra. Ms DeShong brings vocal glamour to her singing, though at times the orchestra covered her. Caesar’s fury at Antony’s treatment of his sister is another case of the fascinating orchestration trumping the vocal line. When Octavia/deShong reveals (with some gorgeous measures of vocalism) that she is pregnant, her brother declares war on Antony. 

A wondrously wrought orchestral interlude leads to a musical depiction of a disastrous sea battle, in which Antony miscalculates and Cleopatra erroneously calls off her own fleet of ships; there is a brief vocal highlight wherein Mr. Finley’s lament blends with a soaring phrase from Ms. Bullock; but it’s over almost as soon as it begins. Lights flash thru the hall as the orchestra pounds away at themes of battle in an endless ending to the opera’s first act. 

In the 90-minute span of this opening act, memorable vocal moments have been few and far-between, whilst the orchestra has shone brilliantly. The voices were there, ready to make much of the music, but the composer’s lack of “lyric musing” (program note) deprives them of opportunities.     

~ Oberon