Above: Helen Vanni as Suzuki in MADAMA BUTTERFLY
~ Author: Oberon
UPDATE (1/17/21): A recording of Ms. Vanni singing Schumann's Frauenliebe und -Leben, with pianist Benjamin Oren, has just appeared on YouTube. Listen to it here.
UPDATE #2 (4/7/22): I've come across a recording of Richard Strauss's ARIADNE AUF NAXOS (sans Prologue) from the 1971 Glyndebourne Festival in which Ms. Vanni sings the title-role, with Helge Brilioth as Bacchus and Sylvia Geszty as Zerbinetta; Aldo Ceccato conducts. Listen here.
~ For several seasons following her 1956 Met debut as the Page in RIGOLETTO, Helen Vanni sang mainly small roles; but she sang them in important productions, and with prominent divas.
One of Ms. Vanni's first opportunities in a larger role came in 1958, as Nicklausse in CONTES D'HOFFMANN. Meanwhile, she sang numerous performances as a peasant lass in NOZZE DI FIGARO before transitioning to Cherubino. And she often sang Kate Pinkerton in MADAMA BUTTERFLY before graduating to Suzuki. Suzuki in fact became something of a signature role for her:
Gabriella Tucci & Helen Vanni - Flower Duet from MADAMA BUTTERFLY - Met 1962
Ms. Vanni made her greatest operatic leap from being a Noble Orphan in ROSENKAVALIER to singing the Marschallin - once on tour and once at The Met - in 1969. Of her single performance of that role in New York City, the New York Times wrote:
"The part of the Marschallin was sung for the first time here with the Met by Helen Vanni. Partly because of her slimness, the soprano gave the impression of being a more youthful Princess than most, and in her understated characterization seemed more easily resigned to the loss of her lover, Octavian. Her singing was beautifully secure, fine grained in tone, and carefully phrased. Her performance was unsentimental and gracious, admirable but not very affecting except briefly at the end of the first act."
Following that Marschallin, Helen Vanni sang two performances of Donna Elvira in DON GIOVANNI at Met Student Performances in 1973; these marked her final appearances with the Company with which she had sung four hundred performances in New York and on tour.
In 1969, while an orchestra strike crippled The Met, Helen Vanni sang two soprano roles at New York City Opera. At that time I was living in The City (temporarily, as it turned out), and so I saw her twice as Mozart's Contessa Almaviva and twice as Countess Madeleine in an English-language production of Strauss's CAPRICCIO:
Her many Met performances in the mezzo repertory hadn't prepared me for Ms. Vanni's archingly lyrical singing (and her elegant portrayals) in these two aristocratic roles. The CAPRICCIOs (my first times seeing the opera) in particular were a joy to experience, in part because the cast included so many singers I was very keen on.
Ms. Vanni also appeared with San Francisco Opera; here is an interesting article about her 1966 performance there as Thomas's Mignon. Following her retirement from the stage, she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she coached singers at the summer opera festival there.
There are few commercial recordings featuring Helen Vanni, but she did record some Schoenberg songs with Glenn Gould:
Helen Vanni - Schoenberg ~ Wir bevölkerten die abenddüstern Lauben - Glenn Gould piano
~ Oberon