The Barber I Thought I Knew

Perhaps naively, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what Samuel Barber sounded like. I’ve sung a few of his works for voice and piano and heard many others and I adore his orchestral music; Adagio for Strings gives me chills every time I hear it and has been one of my favorite pieces for many years. This being said, I thought I knew what an opera by Samuel Barber would consist of. Before listening to Antony and Cleopatra, I was expecting beautiful arias and heart breaking melodies and orchestration throughout. After reading the article “A New Opera House,” by Heyman, I knew that there had been a serious miscommunication or misunderstanding between Barber and the director/ librettist Franco Zeffirelli, as to the staging, sets, costumes and over all enormous scale of this production. However, even after knowing this I was still expecting the music to sound like the Samuel Barber I know and love.

It may be because I am a sucker for a melody, but I was really disappointed by this opera. I love it when I listen to a work for the first time and a tune gets stuck in my head, or I have some sort of an emotional response to the music. That didn’t happen once in this opera. I found the music to be quite frankly, boring, and it was difficult to understand the text. As much as it pains me to say this, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. There were a few moments where I heard snippets of what I would typically associate with Samuel Barber, but for the most part I felt that this opera was dull and monotonous. I think it’s wonderful when composers experiment with their creativity and try something new, and I would never want to discourage that practice, but I think in the case of Antony and Cleopatra, it just didn’t work for me.

Having listened to Antony and Cleopatra, I’m very interested in listening to Vanessa¸ the opera Barber wrote before Antony and Cleopatra. Perhaps I would reach the conclusion, that what I think I know about Samuel Barber, is false. I’m sure he is much more than what I know him to be as a composer, and maybe that is the problem.

Heyman, "A New Opera House," Samuel Barer: The Composer and his Music, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 428-460.