Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
This set, filmed at the Metropolitan Opera's February 2007 performances of Tchaikovsky's most popular opera, has just about everything going for it: an all-star cast in peak form, a great orchestra led by today's leading Russian conductor, and a striking stage production whose minimalist, often stark, sets manage to superbly suit this most Romantic of operas.

Drawn from Pushkin's classic, the opera tightly focuses on the story of Tatiana, a naive young girl who declares her love for a dashing rake (Onegin) who rejects her overtures. His arrogance surfaces leads to flirting with his best friend's fiancee and then to killing him in a duel. Plagued by remorse, a superficially reformed but still impossibly self-centered Onegin meets Tatiana at a ball, but now the childish country bumpkin is the glamorous wife of a Prince. He declares his love but she rejects him and leaves him alone, a solitary, tragic figure.

Renee Fleming's Tatiana is a triumph, her gorgeous soprano voice, intense acting and precise characterization make the complex young woman come alive. Her "Letter Scene," in which the singer must reveal the innermost thoughts of a confused soul, is as good as it gets, as Fleming fully reveals the young woman's joyous hopes of requited love and also her fears of rejection. In the final act, she's still attracted to the dashing Onegin but resolved to preserve her marriage. In the title role, Dmitri Hvorostovsky is her equal; his firm baritone fits the music like a velvet glove and his acting matches Fleming's in its intensity. He's especially fine in his last-act monologue, bursting with despair and passion. Tchaikovsky gave the work's most beautiful arias to Lenski, Onegin's friend. Ramon Vargas' mellifluous tenor is well-suited to the lyricism of Lenski's Act One love aria and to the poignant aria before his duel with Onegin. Lenski's anger at his friend in the ball scene is palpably menacing. As Olga, Tatiana's high-spirited sister and Lenski's fiancee, Elena Zaremba is fully up to the rest of the cast, her rich mezzo and pointed phrasing a strong point. Sergei Aleksaskin's Prince Gremin is a dignified presence, Larisa Schevchenko as Tatiana's old nurse is convincing, and the smaller roles are well sung and acted. Jean-Paul Fouchecourt is not only in excellent voice in the beautiful aria of Triquet, Tatiana's French tutor, but manages to invest his song with an apt touch of parody as well. Valery Gergiev's conducting is a major asset, and the MET Orchestra is in terrific form, with special kudos due to the soulful clarinet solos that are so important in the musical texture.

Producer Robert Carson imbues the work with Romantic glow and Michael Levine's spare sets are far more effective than one might think. The stage is strewn with leaves and framed by textured rods doing duty as birch trees in Act One; the ball scene similarly framed by a rectangle of chairs and side tables, both sets analogues for the character's imprisonment in their unbridled emotions. Video director Brian Large keeps his cameras well-focused on the action, to complete an Onegin that's the DVD version to get. --Dan Davis

Description
Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky triumph in Tchaikovsky's operatic masterpiece Eugene Onegin, filmed live at the Metropolitan Opera. Their onstage chemistry, emotional singing and outstanding acting make this a very special production. Valery Gergiev, Russia's greatest living conductor, leads Russia's classic opera, with a thrilling account of Tchaikovsky's most intense and passionate score. Robert Carsen's evocative staging is striking and beautiful and highlights the personal drama at the heart of Pushkin's tragic tale of young love unrequited. The opera is introduced on this DVD by the great Russian dancer Mikhail Barishnikov. DVD extras include: Eugene Onegin "In Rehearsal," and "Backstage at The Met," a short documentary presented by Beverly Sills, who talks in person to Fleming and Hvorostovsky about the opera and their working relationship. Filmed in Hi-Definition Widescreen.

Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

The Met does Tchaikovsky proud November 25, 2007
70 out of 74 found this review helpful

Anyone making a short list of the all time greatest operas needs to give serious consideration to Eugene Onegin. Not only is this opera filled with beautiful melodies, it also contains a very dramatic story told episodically, almost as a tableaux of grand scenes. The story is unconventional in that the lovers never get together because they are never on the same page romantically, initially he is too mature for her, then, later, ironically, when he finally becomes interested, she is too mature for him. There is death in this opera, but the real tragedy of Eugene Onegin is the title character's self-centered, unfeeling hubris, and finally his regrets. All of this is expressed through music so achingly romantic it washes over the listener like a wave. Anyone who thinks Tchaikovsky was just a composer of pretty ballets has obviously never seen or heard Eugene Onegin.

I saw this production when it was broadcast to a local cineplex earlier this year. I was so enthralled and excited by what I had experienced(I was high on this performance for days!) that I have been anxiously waiting for it to be released on DVD ever since. The production itself isn't perfect, but the performances are(the Met repeats the success of its La Traviata of a few years ago by reuniting the same three leads with the same conductor), and the result is a Eugene Onegin whose like we are unlikely to see again, at least during my lifetime.

The leads could not be more ideally cast. Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky are what is popularly referred as the complete package, a combination of knockout looks, intelligence, charisma, dramatic ability, oh, and did I forget to mention vocal talent? Hvorostovsky broods handsomely, and his icy detachment is chilling, abetted in no small measure by the depth of his baritone voice. His Onegin is easy to fall in love with, but hard to feel much sympathy for, at least until the end, which is how it should be. Fleming is quite a bit older than Tatianna, but is still youthfully lovely, and capable of exploring the young innocent's tormented emotions. Besides, her age and experience make her character's eventual maturation into a regal and sophisticated woman of the world that much more convincing. Fleming's mood-swinging, ultimately giddy Letter Scene brings down the house,(remember, when I saw this it was in a movie theater, watching the performance via satellite, and the result was just as overpowering). Ramon Vargas has the impassioned, jealous tenor thing down pat, he obviously draws on his experience singing Alfredo, and he makes for a fiery Lensky. The mezzo-soprano who sings Olga(I don't recall her name) is attractive and appropriately flirty. Musically, I'd rate this performance as flawless. Conductor Valery Gergiev's deep understanding of this score is obvious, so is his equally deep love for it.

The production is mostly good, but with some problems. For instance, I don't understand why Tatianna's bed is placed in the middle of the outdoors other than to give her an excuse to fling leaves across the stage at the climax of the Letter Scene. Maybe this is supposed to represent how her writing the letter is her liberation from confinement...if so, well, it works better conceptually than visually. And the ballroom scenes are minimalist to the extreme, lacking any grandeur, which attenuates the effectiveness of the staging. Certain operas, such as Traviata and this one, should always be opulent(this director could take a few lessons from Franco Zefferelli), no matter how modernist operas in general become, because the opulence is an important element of the storytelling. Onegin is supposed to be distanced from and bored by the bourgeois spectacle he sees, by the aristocratic circles he finds himself traveling in, and their values, but this is hard to convey when there isn't any bourgeois spectacle to be bored BY. My feeling, this is minimalism without any understanding of the subtexts of the opera, minimalism for its own sake, just to do something different, an attempt to add intimacy to a scene that isn't really supposed to be intimate. On a positive note, the opening scene is superb, as are the scenes where Onegin rebuffs Tatianna's affections and their final intimate drawing room duet. The duel, staged completely in shadows, is rather unsettling. Here the creepy minimalism makes perfect sense, and the result is one of the most effective opera scenes I've seen in recent memory. For the most part the production works, despite being disappointing in places, at the very least it never distracts from the performances, which might sound like a left-handed compliment but is a compliment nonetheless.

One more thing, concerning the price. I was tempted to knock off a star due to the fact that Deutsche Grammophon has chosen to release this as a two disc set even though the opera is only about two-and-a-half hours long and therefore capable of fitting on one. I have the same complaint about the upcoming I Puritani, which I saw when it was broadcast on PBS, also an excellent performance, very much worth owning, but also short enough to fit on a single disc. Obviously I'm planning to suck it up(for Onegin, and perhaps for Puritani as well) and shell out the money because the idea of not owning this is unthinkable, but in the meantime, color me disgruntled. In the end, though, I have decided to rate the performance, not the price, in which case the five stars is well deserved.

5 out of 5 stars

The 2nd best performance I've ever seen in 25 years! December 8, 2007
24 out of 29 found this review helpful

I was thrilled seeing this at the movie theater knowing the considerable talent of the three principals and couldn't wait until it came out on DVD. I've purchased a few for Christmas presents to the friends who were with me on that day and, yes, we opera "buffs" have been discussing it ever since. The first reviewer is spot on in the details of the review. The only detraction was (as most usual) the production, however, those made no difference in the wonderful pleasure derived from the artistry of the singers. Dmitri owns the role, period. Renee was at her very, very best and the chemistry between the two jumped off the screen. This is a must purchase for anyone who loves the art of pure singing and acting singers. Performances of perfection!! I was in attendance at the Met for my favorite performance of all time, that of Domingo and Fleming in "Otello", also available on DVD. This is just about as good as it gets in the world of great opera singing. I've seen all three in person many times and the DVD is a must for memories of these extraordinary artists in a beautiful opera. Russian is a language that sings beautifully as well. Don't leave this one in Amazon's inventory. Buy it!

5 out of 5 stars

The Met at its finest January 10, 2008
24 out of 25 found this review helpful

My wife and I watched this performance from the Grand Tier. At the time, we agreed that the staging and performance were superb, and the cameras were unobtrusive, but thought that some of the performances, notably that of Dmitri Hvorostovsky, were a tad 'wooden'.

A few months later, we saw the broadcast performance, and were very pleasantly surprised. Hvorostovsky's performance was far from wooden: with the benefits of the TV camera, we could see every subtle nuance, every expression, every gesture. His was a performance of the highest standard. Bravo!

And here we find one of the differences between televised and live performances - the camera can pick up subtleties which just aren't visible from the back of the theatre (and exaggerate 'operatic acting'as it happens). True, watching a live performance has other advantages - the ambience, the freedom to choose what you want to look at, people-watching, the champagne during the intervals....

In the past, there have been other differences - poor direction, inadequate sound, extraneous noise, but this is no longer an issue. This Brian Large production is basically superb! Picture quality is excellent, reflecting the clever lighting effects on stage. Sound is crystal clear, with enough resolution to distinguish individual applause (ours must have been in there somewhere, I suppose). This recording, in many respects, is even better than the 'real thing'.

Putting technicalities to one side, the production itself was of the highest calibre. All the singers, without exception, were at the top of their form. Aria after aria ended in thunderous applause. Gergiev was amazing, extracting every ounce of emotion from Tchaikowsky's music.

The minimalist sets were, I thought, very clever. I particularly liked the first ballroom scene, where the dancers were crowded together in a slightly too small dance floor flanked by mis-matched chairs. The effect was of an impromptu ball run by a family who were comfortably off, but a little down-at-heel. The leaves, as a symbol of time passing, were very effective, particularly during the overture.

And now, I think, enough time has passed.

This is a superb recording in every way; one to be treasured.

5 out of 5 stars

Spectacular! December 1, 2007
19 out of 22 found this review helpful

I saw the moviecast of this production. For those who don't know, the moviecast was a live performance of a matinee at the Met in New York shown in movie theatres across the country; it had almost all the excitement of being in the Met itself for this unforgettable performance. I just wish I too had a program to tear up and rain confetti down on the singers as the audience at the Met did. Yes, it was that great a performance.

This is a lushly romantic opera about unrequited love and deserves to be far better known than it is.

As for the performance, it's one for the ages and I count myself lucky to have seen the moviecast. I agree with the previous reviewer about the spare sets not always doing justice to the intent of the opera, but the performances are so stellar, it really doesn't matter.

I've been anxiously awaiting the DVD and am very relieved that it's one of only two releases from last season's Met moviecasts.

4 out of 5 stars

Unfortunately, it is not "the" ultimate Eugene Onegin, as I hoped January 8, 2008
14 out of 16 found this review helpful

I am a big fan of Eugene Onegin and watched this opera several times at various opera houses, including once at Bolshoi (the "old" Bolshoi of 1980s). Therefore, I have had quite high expectations after seeing parts of this performance on TV a few months ago. Yesterday, after the DVD arrived in the mail, I could barely wait to get home to watch it. Honestly, I was disappointed. Please do not get me wrong. This production is still very good, just it is not the ultimate Eugene Onegin I hoped it would be. Hvorostovsky is outstanding, he is definitely the best Onegin I ever heard. At the same time, Fleming as Tatiana is not as good as I expected. After watching this DVD, I listened for a while to my old CD set with Galina Vishnevskaya as Tatiana (Bolshoi, recorded in 1950s), and in my opinion Vishnevskaya's singing is highly superior to that of Fleming. Also, maybe a factor was the awful quality of the English translation, which totally emasculates the rich Pushkin poetry. Sometimes I had the feeling Fleming had no idea what was the real meaning of the words she was singing, and it really spoiled the impression of her acting (wrong gestures, wrong expressions). At times, like in the middle of the first act (Onegin and Tatiana returning from their walk), she seemed not to know what to do and, rather than acting, was looking intently at Hvorostovsky for clues. This was disappointing. Overall, this is a good performance, and Hvorostovski is absolutely brilliant. However, it is not "the" ultimate Eugene Onegin I hoped it would be.

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