“Vanessa” returns to Spoleto, 45 years later

With a libretto by Spoleto Festival USA founder Gian Carlo Menotti, a new version of Samuel Barber’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera “Vanessa” will have its U.S. premiere during this year’s festival – 45 years after the original was produced here in 1978.

The revamped love story, directed by Rodula Gaitanou, initially opened at the 2016 Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland. While it opened May 27, it will also play June 6 and June 10 at Charleston Gaillard Center with international soprano Nicole Heaston, who has previously worked with the Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera and performed at the Glyndebourne Festival in England, in the title role.

Given the opera’s historical ties to the festival, both Heaston and Gaitanou are grateful to be a part of the production and its return to Spoleto.

“I’m very honored actually about being the one who brings it back to life after all this time in this place, which is so very significant,” Gaitanou said.

The nearly three-hour show centers around three women: Vanessa (Heaston), her niece Erica (played by Zoie Reams), and the Old Baroness (played by Rosalind Plowright). The English opera is set in an old country house in the 1950s, where Vanessa waits 20 years for her lover to return. As life passes her by, she soon becomes entangled in a love triangle that tests the strength of her family’s bond.

Barber’s original opera was set in the early 1900s, and it’s been seven years since its most recent showing in Ireland. Gaitanou says while the story may be the same, they are shining a new light on the production, from casting to design.

“For me, there is no real revival. We revisit this production, and we bring it back to life, almost as if it’s new,” Gaitanou said. “The period we set it in –the costumes, the world – is the same, but of course, we’re working with a new cast, an extraordinary cast, fantastic team.”

Cordelia Chisholm, the opera’s scenic and costume designer, originally worked on the 2016 production. She didn’t seek inspiration from past showings of the opera – rather, her approach was to make her own interpretations of the costume and set design. While some period pieces were re-used from 2016, most were handmade and found in vintage shops or online.

“Some of the furniture amazingly still existed, so we were able to ship some of that over, which is great,” Chisholm said. “The sets have been completely remade, and a few of the costumes remained, but I’d say it’s going to be 92 percent recreated.”

The cast and crew have made “Vanessa” an immersive experience, where everything from the characters’ emotions and the nature of the set to the costumes, acting and music are considered. Audiences will get the chance to see Heaston combine acting and singing in the role of Vanessa as she transitions her character from an agitated, lonely woman to a more open, vulnerable character.

“I may want to sing something really angry in my interpretation of a line, but then I may be looking at someone, and they’re looking at me with a sympathetic look, and I have to react to that,” Heaston said. “You have to be able to react to your fellow actors, as well as stay true to what you’re saying. Sometimes it reveals a different way of looking at it.”

IF YOU PLAN TO GO: 7 p.m. June 6; and 7:30, June 10, at Charleston Gaillard Center. Tickets are $48 to $153.

Timia Cobb is an arts journalism graduate student at Syracuse University.