Rescuing The Music That Sounds Like Music

Samuel Barber’s lush, beautiful opera, Vanessa, was a hit with critics when it first opened in 1958, but it was quickly blasted by the modernists who ruled the musical/intellectual roost at the time. Now, it’s being restaged by New York City Opera, and Anthony Tommassini says that “it’s hard to imagine today what anyone found so objectionable in the opera.”