Eugene Onegin
Aug. 15th, 2022 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI got to see another opera! :D Eugene Onegin, put on by the excellent summer program where I live, the first one they've put on since the pandemic. I love Onegin and this one was excellent (all three operas I've gone to put on by this program have been quite excellent). The pit was also excellent (the summer program includes an instrumental portion). And it's also fun because all the singers are younger (18-34) so everyone actually is more-or-less the right age to play doomed adolescent love, lol. And gosh, live opera is just so great. It's always a revelation to me with regard to the orchestra and how all the orchestral music fits in. And I'd forgotten how incredibly much I love all of Tchaikovsky's duets and quartets in this opera! <3 :D
I was especially excited about seeing it because the baritone playing Onegin had been at the same program before the pandemic, and I'd heard him in Simon Keenylside's masterclass and been really impressed. (Keenlyside was also very impressed and told him not to push his voice... like he had done :) ) Interestingly, although I still adored his voice, and he has put in a lot of wonderful musical color that I'm not sure was all there when I heard him last, in some ways he was the least operatically impressive of the leads -- he had volume but only when he pushed for it (Tatyana and Lenski had more volume) (though he did manage to make "where a bloodstained ghost/ confronted me every day!" as powerful as it needed to be, which is really what I ask of an Onegin), which may very likely be a function of age (my understanding is that he's only 26, so he has a lot of time for his voice to mature). And he was missing what my voice teacher used to call a "ping" in the voice that gives it greater depth. I think he would be great for art songs and earlier opera, though, even if his voice doesn't grow! Anyway, he also was slightly less natural in his acting than the other leads -- Tatyana and Lensky really sold that they were those characters, whereas one could often not entirely forget that Onegin's singer was acting his character. (Possibly partially because -- I hear, from a friend who is involved with the program -- that he is a nice kid, and playing Onegin, I speculate, was acting against personality. And indeed, the scenes where he was most natural were the ones where he didn't have to play unlikeable and aloof or That Guy, like when he was flirting with Olga, and when he saw the Princess Gremina he just had this totally cute "whoa!" reaction that I loved.) BUT he was definitely far better and more natural than the (professional!) baritone that I saw playing Germont earlier this year in both body language and vocal artistry, haha. (Germont probably had a louder voice, though, but of course he was older and had a more mature voice.) This guy, I'd enjoy seeing play Germont, and I hope I get to see it someday!
The soprano playing Tatyana was excellent, both singing and acting. I think there was one place she didn't quite land in the right place timing-wise relative to the orchestra, and a couple of little musical glitches once or twice, but otherwise she was really very good, and her acting was all very natural and lovely. Her letter scene was just suuuuper thrilling, in a way I don't remember being quite so intensely sucked in when I saw the professional company do it a couple of years ago (but idk, maybe I just don't remember, and it's certainly true that the more I watch opera, the more used I get to operatic voices and the more likely they are to move me). (I am really curious to see what my program-associated friend has to say! Friend saw the other performance and I won't get to talk to her for a couple of weeks.)
The tenor playing Lensky was also great in singing and acting! You could really see the buildup of his jealousy, and his big solo "Kuda, kuda" was moving (though interestingly not quite as much as the letter scene -- which I think speaks to how good Tatyana was, because usually I feel the other way around). (Also, the party scene was great and it's always one of my favorites, with everyone shooting each other figurative death glares during it.)
Olga was also just great, and really sold Olga as a sweet and well-meaning character who just didn't realize how jealous Lensky was. The duet between Olga and Tatyana at the very beginning was really excellent. Mme Larina was good; the nurse was just okay. Both Gremin and M. Triquet were excellent character actors -- Triquet's was the first time I'd actually paid attention through his whole song, though admittedly because I often fast-forward through it, and this time it occurred to me that it's in French, so I could actually follow it with the help of the supertitles. Gremin's voice was shaky in a way that didn't seem to be nerves, but I don't know if it was a characteristic of his actual voice or if it was vocal acting. (His aria was excellent as a character aria.)
The set was fine, nothing particularly specially good or bad. The staging/choreography was well done, except one very weird thing! At the very beginning an older (maybe in her 50's? Noticeably older than the program singers, is what I'm trying to say) woman came out and (silently) cued the lights and the orchestra, and there was this conceit where she directed all the chorus members, as well as Onegin and Lensky, to sit in chairs at the edge of the stage, where they watched Mme Larina and the nurse. But then that conceit never showed up for the entire rest of the opera! Except that the older lady showed up again at some point... right around the Polonaise, maybe?... and sort of gestured to Onegin to follow her across the stage, sort of randomly. It was weird and made no sense!! I looked in the program afterwards and her part was listed as "Madame," and it turns out she was the choreographer. IDK. My best guess is that she insisted on an on-stage part in the production, so the staging person shoehorned her in?? Or they had a fight about whether it should be a fourth-wall-breaking production or not, and this was a (weird) compromise?? Because except for those two isolated bits it was not a fourth-wall-breaking production!
One detail that I'd never seen before was that in the duel scene, they raise their guns to shoot each other and then during the musical buildup to them firing, Lensky dropped his arm (and Onegin then, of course, still shoots him). It hasn't gone into my automatic headcanon (like, e.g., Renato not actually intending to kill Amelia, which I think should be all productions ever) but it was interesting to see/think about.
At the end, Tatyana didn't leave while Onegin was declaiming about his pitiable life; he did his lines and then ran off. He had previously run off in all the other tense parts of the opera (the party, the duel) so this seemed very on-brand for him and I liked the thematic resonance, although it did seem a little odd to have Tatyana still there.
The costuming was reasonable, except that Princess Gremina wore this (canonically red) floofy ball dress with extremely puffy sleeves, and it somehow just didn't fit my picture of her as a sophisticate, although it was definitely still quite a transformation from girl!Tatyana, who wore a much less fancy set of clothes.
I was especially excited about seeing it because the baritone playing Onegin had been at the same program before the pandemic, and I'd heard him in Simon Keenylside's masterclass and been really impressed. (Keenlyside was also very impressed and told him not to push his voice... like he had done :) ) Interestingly, although I still adored his voice, and he has put in a lot of wonderful musical color that I'm not sure was all there when I heard him last, in some ways he was the least operatically impressive of the leads -- he had volume but only when he pushed for it (Tatyana and Lenski had more volume) (though he did manage to make "where a bloodstained ghost/ confronted me every day!" as powerful as it needed to be, which is really what I ask of an Onegin), which may very likely be a function of age (my understanding is that he's only 26, so he has a lot of time for his voice to mature). And he was missing what my voice teacher used to call a "ping" in the voice that gives it greater depth. I think he would be great for art songs and earlier opera, though, even if his voice doesn't grow! Anyway, he also was slightly less natural in his acting than the other leads -- Tatyana and Lensky really sold that they were those characters, whereas one could often not entirely forget that Onegin's singer was acting his character. (Possibly partially because -- I hear, from a friend who is involved with the program -- that he is a nice kid, and playing Onegin, I speculate, was acting against personality. And indeed, the scenes where he was most natural were the ones where he didn't have to play unlikeable and aloof or That Guy, like when he was flirting with Olga, and when he saw the Princess Gremina he just had this totally cute "whoa!" reaction that I loved.) BUT he was definitely far better and more natural than the (professional!) baritone that I saw playing Germont earlier this year in both body language and vocal artistry, haha. (Germont probably had a louder voice, though, but of course he was older and had a more mature voice.) This guy, I'd enjoy seeing play Germont, and I hope I get to see it someday!
The soprano playing Tatyana was excellent, both singing and acting. I think there was one place she didn't quite land in the right place timing-wise relative to the orchestra, and a couple of little musical glitches once or twice, but otherwise she was really very good, and her acting was all very natural and lovely. Her letter scene was just suuuuper thrilling, in a way I don't remember being quite so intensely sucked in when I saw the professional company do it a couple of years ago (but idk, maybe I just don't remember, and it's certainly true that the more I watch opera, the more used I get to operatic voices and the more likely they are to move me). (I am really curious to see what my program-associated friend has to say! Friend saw the other performance and I won't get to talk to her for a couple of weeks.)
The tenor playing Lensky was also great in singing and acting! You could really see the buildup of his jealousy, and his big solo "Kuda, kuda" was moving (though interestingly not quite as much as the letter scene -- which I think speaks to how good Tatyana was, because usually I feel the other way around). (Also, the party scene was great and it's always one of my favorites, with everyone shooting each other figurative death glares during it.)
Olga was also just great, and really sold Olga as a sweet and well-meaning character who just didn't realize how jealous Lensky was. The duet between Olga and Tatyana at the very beginning was really excellent. Mme Larina was good; the nurse was just okay. Both Gremin and M. Triquet were excellent character actors -- Triquet's was the first time I'd actually paid attention through his whole song, though admittedly because I often fast-forward through it, and this time it occurred to me that it's in French, so I could actually follow it with the help of the supertitles. Gremin's voice was shaky in a way that didn't seem to be nerves, but I don't know if it was a characteristic of his actual voice or if it was vocal acting. (His aria was excellent as a character aria.)
The set was fine, nothing particularly specially good or bad. The staging/choreography was well done, except one very weird thing! At the very beginning an older (maybe in her 50's? Noticeably older than the program singers, is what I'm trying to say) woman came out and (silently) cued the lights and the orchestra, and there was this conceit where she directed all the chorus members, as well as Onegin and Lensky, to sit in chairs at the edge of the stage, where they watched Mme Larina and the nurse. But then that conceit never showed up for the entire rest of the opera! Except that the older lady showed up again at some point... right around the Polonaise, maybe?... and sort of gestured to Onegin to follow her across the stage, sort of randomly. It was weird and made no sense!! I looked in the program afterwards and her part was listed as "Madame," and it turns out she was the choreographer. IDK. My best guess is that she insisted on an on-stage part in the production, so the staging person shoehorned her in?? Or they had a fight about whether it should be a fourth-wall-breaking production or not, and this was a (weird) compromise?? Because except for those two isolated bits it was not a fourth-wall-breaking production!
One detail that I'd never seen before was that in the duel scene, they raise their guns to shoot each other and then during the musical buildup to them firing, Lensky dropped his arm (and Onegin then, of course, still shoots him). It hasn't gone into my automatic headcanon (like, e.g., Renato not actually intending to kill Amelia, which I think should be all productions ever) but it was interesting to see/think about.
At the end, Tatyana didn't leave while Onegin was declaiming about his pitiable life; he did his lines and then ran off. He had previously run off in all the other tense parts of the opera (the party, the duel) so this seemed very on-brand for him and I liked the thematic resonance, although it did seem a little odd to have Tatyana still there.
The costuming was reasonable, except that Princess Gremina wore this (canonically red) floofy ball dress with extremely puffy sleeves, and it somehow just didn't fit my picture of her as a sophisticate, although it was definitely still quite a transformation from girl!Tatyana, who wore a much less fancy set of clothes.
