Vanessa (opera)

Vanessa is an American opera in three (originally four) acts by Samuel Barber, opus 32, with an original English libretto by Gian-Carlo Menotti. It was composed in 1956–1957 and was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 15, 1958 under the baton of Dimitri Mitropoulos in a production designed by Cecil Beaton and directed by Menotti. Barber revised the opera in 1964, reducing the four acts to the three-act version most commonly performed today.

Performance history

For the Met premiere, Sena Jurinac was contracted to sing the title role. However, she cancelled six weeks before the opening night and Eleanor Steber replaced her, making it her own for a long time. In the role of Erika, Vanessa's niece, was Rosalind Elias, then a young mezzo-soprano. Nicolai Gedda sang the lover Anatol, mezzo Regina Resnik sang the Baroness, Vanessa's mother, while bass, Giorgio Tozzi, sang the old doctor.

The premiere "was an unqualified success with the audience and with many of the critics as well although they were somewhat qualified in their judgment. Of the final quintet, however, New York Times critic Howard Taubman said it is '...a full-blown set-piece that packs an emotional charge and that would be a credit to any composer anywhere today.' ". Other reports substantiate this and it won Barber the Pulitzer Prize. In Europe, however, it met with a chillier reception.

Vanessa (Millais painting)

Vanessa (1868) is a painting by John Everett Millais in Sudley House, Liverpool. It is a fancy portrait depicting Jonathan Swift's correspondent Esther Vanhomrigh (1688-1723), who was known by that pseudonym.

Vanessa represents a major departure in Millais's art because he abandons fully for the first time the detailed finish that was still to be seen in Waking and Sleeping, exhibited in the previous year. Influenced by the work of Diego Velázquez and Joshua Reynolds, Millais paints with dramatic, visible brush strokes in vivid colours, creating what has been described as an "almost violently modern" handling of paint.

Esther Vanhomrigh is known as "Swift's Vanessa" because of the fictional name he gave her when he published their correspondence. The portrait is wholly imaginary. No actual image of Esther Vanhomrigh exists. She is holding a letter, presumably written to or from Swift. Her sad expression is related to the fraught nature of the relationship, which was broken up by Swift's relationship to another woman, Esther Johnson whom he called "Stella". Millais also painted a companion piece depicting Stella.

Vanessa (telenovela)

Vanessa is a Mexican telenovela produced by Valentín Pimstein for Televisa in 1982. Is a remake of the successful Brazilian telenovela Idolo de Pano.

It starred by Lucía Méndez, Héctor Bonilla, Rogelio Guerra, Angélica Aragón and Nuria Bages.

Plot

Vanessa is a young girl who lives with her father José de Jesús and his brother Juan, both working as railway and have a small house near the tracks; Vanessa in order to help them get work in the textile factory of Cecile Saint Michel a powerful and successful woman who lives in a huge mansion with his grandsons Pierre and Luciano.

Cast

Paul (bishop of Mérida)

Paul was the metropolitan bishop of Mérida in the mid sixth century (fl. 540s/550s). He was a Greek physician who had travelled to Mérida, where there may have been a Greek expatriate community. Certainly enough Greek clergy were travelling to Spain in the early sixth century that Pope Hormisdas wrote to the Spanish bishops in 518 explaining what to do if Greeks still adhering to the Acacian heresy desired to enter communion with the local church.

At some point in his episcopate, he performed a Caesarian section to save a woman's life. In gratitude, her husband, the richest senator in Lusitania, left all his possessions as a legacy to Paul, as well as immediately giving him one half. Though canon law dictated that all gifts to bishops passed to the Church, Paul kept the legacy as his private possession.

Paul's sister's son, Fidelis, was hired out as a boy to a trading vessel on its way to Spain. When the merchants arrived in Mérida, they approached the bishop for an audience, as was customary, and Paul discovered his nephew. Paul immediately took Fidelis under his wing. Contrary to canon law, he consecrated Fidelis as his successor in the bishopric and tried to force the clergy to accept his decision by threatening to withhold his vast private wealth which technically belonged to the Church. Paul offered to leave the wealth to Fidelis and after Fidelis' death to the Church, but the bishops initially refused. They were forced to relent when he threatened to remove all his wealth and dispose of otherwise; the riches made Mérida by far the richest see in Spain. Fidelis, in accordance with Paul's wishes, left the wealth to the Church at his death. Paul's later biographer, the author of the Vitas Patrum Emeritensium justified the bishop's transgressions of canon law by saying that the ideas had been relevante sibi Spiritu sancto: "revealed to him by the Holy Spirit." The VPE, as it is abbreviated, refers to Paul as a saint.

Debil

Debil ("Moronic") is the first full-length studio album by Die Ärzte, released in 1984, following the EPs Zu schön, um wahr zu sein! and Uns geht's prima.... The songs "Paul" and "Zu spät" were released as singles, without being successful initially. However, a live version of "Zu spät" was released as a single from the live album Nach uns die Sintflut in 1989 and became a moderate hit in Germany.

In 1987, the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons) put the songs "Claudia hat 'nen Schäferhund" and "Schlaflied" on the List of Media Harmful to Young People, with the effect that they could not be sold to minors, nor publicly advertised or displayed. This ban was lifted in 2004, which led to the subsequent reissue of the album (see below).

Track listing

Devil

Following a reevaluation of the record by the BPjM, Debil was reissued on 21 October 2005 as Devil with slightly altered cover art and additional tracks.

Track listing

Paul (Yazigi)

Paul (Yazigi) of Aleppo is the metropolitan of the archdiocese of Aleppo, Syria, of the Church of Antioch. Born in 1959 in the coastal city of Latakia (Syria) into a very devout Christian family, he was active in the church as a youth. After graduating in 1985 from the Tishreen University in Civil Engineering degree, he was ordained a deacon and studied theology at the University of Thessaloniki, gaining a bachelor degree in 1989, a Master's degree in 1992 and a Doctor of Philosophy. He also studied at Mount Athos.

Paul was ordained to the priesthood in 1992 and was Dean of the Institute of Theology from 1994 to 2000 when he was elected Metropolitan of Aleppo, being enthroned in Aleppo on October 22. In 2013 he was abducted by militants in the Syrian Civil war, his whereabouts is currently unknown.

Gallery

Church of the Dormition of Our Lady Cathedral

Church of the Dormition of Our Lady Cathedral

A narrow street in the Christian quarter (Aleppo)

A narrow street in the Christian quarter (Aleppo)