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Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House
Gerald Finley leads a strong cast, but the staging is a little much ...
…taken from Pushkin’s original). The nightmarish quality was supposed to be expressive of the shy heroine’s social discomfort, but I felt sorriest for the veteran tenor Robin Leggate, singing with great style in the cameo role of Monsieur Triquet: in chartreuse velvet with rainbow trimmings, he was done up like Dame Edna Everage.
The snowy duel scene, apart from a ‘flash forward’ of Olga visiting Lensky’s grave, went pretty much according to the usual plan, but it led into to a major dramatic cop-out … Act III opens some time later in St Petersburg, supposedly at a glittering society ball. It kicks off with a glorious, strutting polonaise, a pointed contrast with the more homely waltz we heard at Tatyana’s provincial hop. Only here there was no dancing. All we did get was the dazed Onegin crossing the stage before a funereal drop curtain, which eventually rose to reveal the reason for the lengthy scene-change ... The intrusive pond had become an ice rink – or rather the frozen River Neva – the setting for a gloomy torch-lit skating party. By this point, Onegin was a disturbed and dishevelled figure, prone to loping around like a werewolf and, in the final scene, wrestling Tatyana to the ground. The Expressionistic mood of this last act, along with the St Petersburg setting, evoked Tchaikovsky’s other repertory opera, The Queen of Spades – also taken from Pushkin, but far more prone to hysteria.
As Onegin, Canadian-born Gerald Finley fulfilled all the (sometimes unnecessary) demands made on him. Brooding and Byronic of mien, he was utterly convincing as both cool customer and tortured wanderer. His tone is of velvety beauty, his diction is impeccable and his phrasing exquisite. At a couple of moments his voice failed to ‘speak’ perfectly, but this was a consummate performance. Marina Poplavskaya is a young Russian soprano who has risen through the Royal Opera’s programme for young singers. Her breakthrough came at the Barbican in 2006 at a concert performance of La Juive, a seldom-heard opera by Halévy; earlier this year she made her debut at the Met in New York. This willowy blonde’s voice is especially lovely in the middle register, plaintive and oboe-like. It’s all there, but this Tatyana seemed to be communing with herself rather than with the audience. Yes, the girl must be a little introverted, but she also needs to reach out and touch our hearts.
As her sister, another Russian, the mezzo Ekaterina Semenchuk sang superbly – her voice, rather lacking in juice when she reached the finals of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2001, has filled out nicely. Dark, pretty, and sensuous, she looks ideal, though this Olga was too much of a hoyden. Unforced, glowing tone flowed from the handsome Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, yet at times his stage manner seemed more…
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Comments
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sabine 2008-03-25 11:47:00 |
A little too harsh (Report) Well, I rather liked the production. It was simple but not so self-consciously modern as some productions can be. I enjoyed the seasonality of it. I rather liked the water and the ice and the peasant scenes were fun. Let's face it, those peasant songs are sentimental, so having garish idealised 'peasant' costumes worked rather well. However, I do admit that those huge paintings were a bit of a distraction. As for the singing, it was fantastic. |
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