Eugene Onegin, again
Feb. 19th, 2018 08:48 pmSo I spent the last month marinating in Eugene Onegin, which started out just being because I found out Hvorostovsky had died and wanted to watch the Met 2007 Onegin with him and Fleming again, and then (as I do) I had SO MANY feelings about it and Tatyana in particular, and there was this Chocolate Box letter (which may have been where I found this out? or was it meme, I forget), and then as I do I really started getting obsessed. With predictable results. But anyway.
I spent most of the time listening obsessively to the Opera in English Chandos recording, because I do a lot better when I can get that intuitive connection in English. (I like dubbed movies too. I know, I know. I am a Philistine.) And Kiri te Kanawa and Thomas Hampson are both great as Tatyana and Onegin. The translation is… interesting. They have chosen to go with a metered and rhyming translation, which in theory I am totally for because it gives much more of a sense as to how it would come across as a native-language production. In practice, now that I know the translated text pretty well, there are several odd choices — for example, Onegin's half of the duet at the end seems to stress death a lot ("I would die, Tatyana! Yes, die for you!"), and ends with "Now only death remains!" which is, at least from the translation I have, not really how the Russian goes ("Oh, my pitiable fate!") and with very different connotations. Now, it's true that in Pushkin there is rather more talk as to how Onegin is wasting away and almost dies from love, so I suspect that is what it's referring to, but the end certainly doesn't have Onegin talking about dying (or about anything else — Tatyana puts him in his place, she leaves, he hears her husband coming home, end scene and book) and it's a rather different feel to have him keep talking about death.
But anyway, Tchaikovsky is just phenomenal. I have always loved Tchaikovsky a lot — but, like, there are all these little orchestral flourishes and lovely bits, like when Gremin talks about how Tatyana, in his melancholy life, was "like sunshine" and the woodwind comes in in a cadence that's, well, rather like sunshine — and so many totally amazing melodies — Gremin's aria, the Letter scene (this melody was in my head for weeks on end, it's that beautiful, haunting and melancholy and hopeful and yearning and then triumphantly yearning — AGH). He's really the most cinematic composer ever.
And then there's the Met 2007 performance -- Hvorostovsky and Fleming are so magnetic — and Vargas' voice is gorgeous — and![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
categranger's letter sold me on Olga/Lensky like whoa. (I had always been a little suspicious of Olga/Lensky because Pushkin does not seem to take it, or Olga, seriously — but it's played rather more straight in the opera and in this performance in particular.) I think one of the things I love best about it is how Hvorostovsky goes all stiff and blank after Lensky's death, and then he sees Tatyana again and suddenly it's like his entire body language changes, becomes more fluid and supple and evocative, it's sort of amazing to watch. And that ending scene, my gosh, SO PERFECT. Has there ever been an Onegin/Tatyana with more chemistry than those two? If so I want to know about it so I can watch it :PPPPP
This week also I found this Stovhus/Stoyanova Onegin here which is sooooo not a good first Onegin (it would be super confusing) but which I had an awful lot of fun watching. Like the Keenlyside/Stoyanova Royal Opera House version I ranted about a while back, it's again one of these retrospective things where the characters are looking back (and actually more complicated than that, as there's a prologue that begins the opera at the beginning of the last scene, and then rewinds via memories to the beginning as we know it). Bo Skovhus is directed kind of weirdly as Onegin, I thought — I felt like he was sort of bouncing between being a kind of likeable geek and a very drunk confused person (and neither of which I feel like gives rise to the fundamentally unlikeable nature that underlies Onegin, and that Hvorostovsky can do so well). Stoyanova is brilliant and I love her Tatyana a lot. And it can't be denied that Skovhus and Stoyanova have the chemistry required to sell it.
I have a weakness for this staging, too, because it's got a young-or-at-least-their-own-age Gremin that Tatyana seems genuinely fond of. I have basically a huge soft spot for Gremin because as canon goes, Tatyana is stuck with him, so he might as well be someone that she legit likes and has chemistry with, and usually he's cast as some super old guy where it's impossible to imagine any chemistry whatsoever — which to be fair is at least mildly supported by Pushkin. But anyway Stoyanova and Petrenko do have chemistry and what appears to be genuine emotion in the Gremins' marriage.
ahhhhh this opera!!
I spent most of the time listening obsessively to the Opera in English Chandos recording, because I do a lot better when I can get that intuitive connection in English. (I like dubbed movies too. I know, I know. I am a Philistine.) And Kiri te Kanawa and Thomas Hampson are both great as Tatyana and Onegin. The translation is… interesting. They have chosen to go with a metered and rhyming translation, which in theory I am totally for because it gives much more of a sense as to how it would come across as a native-language production. In practice, now that I know the translated text pretty well, there are several odd choices — for example, Onegin's half of the duet at the end seems to stress death a lot ("I would die, Tatyana! Yes, die for you!"), and ends with "Now only death remains!" which is, at least from the translation I have, not really how the Russian goes ("Oh, my pitiable fate!") and with very different connotations. Now, it's true that in Pushkin there is rather more talk as to how Onegin is wasting away and almost dies from love, so I suspect that is what it's referring to, but the end certainly doesn't have Onegin talking about dying (or about anything else — Tatyana puts him in his place, she leaves, he hears her husband coming home, end scene and book) and it's a rather different feel to have him keep talking about death.
But anyway, Tchaikovsky is just phenomenal. I have always loved Tchaikovsky a lot — but, like, there are all these little orchestral flourishes and lovely bits, like when Gremin talks about how Tatyana, in his melancholy life, was "like sunshine" and the woodwind comes in in a cadence that's, well, rather like sunshine — and so many totally amazing melodies — Gremin's aria, the Letter scene (this melody was in my head for weeks on end, it's that beautiful, haunting and melancholy and hopeful and yearning and then triumphantly yearning — AGH). He's really the most cinematic composer ever.
And then there's the Met 2007 performance -- Hvorostovsky and Fleming are so magnetic — and Vargas' voice is gorgeous — and
categranger's letter sold me on Olga/Lensky like whoa. (I had always been a little suspicious of Olga/Lensky because Pushkin does not seem to take it, or Olga, seriously — but it's played rather more straight in the opera and in this performance in particular.) I think one of the things I love best about it is how Hvorostovsky goes all stiff and blank after Lensky's death, and then he sees Tatyana again and suddenly it's like his entire body language changes, becomes more fluid and supple and evocative, it's sort of amazing to watch. And that ending scene, my gosh, SO PERFECT. Has there ever been an Onegin/Tatyana with more chemistry than those two? If so I want to know about it so I can watch it :PPPPPThis week also I found this Stovhus/Stoyanova Onegin here which is sooooo not a good first Onegin (it would be super confusing) but which I had an awful lot of fun watching. Like the Keenlyside/Stoyanova Royal Opera House version I ranted about a while back, it's again one of these retrospective things where the characters are looking back (and actually more complicated than that, as there's a prologue that begins the opera at the beginning of the last scene, and then rewinds via memories to the beginning as we know it). Bo Skovhus is directed kind of weirdly as Onegin, I thought — I felt like he was sort of bouncing between being a kind of likeable geek and a very drunk confused person (and neither of which I feel like gives rise to the fundamentally unlikeable nature that underlies Onegin, and that Hvorostovsky can do so well). Stoyanova is brilliant and I love her Tatyana a lot. And it can't be denied that Skovhus and Stoyanova have the chemistry required to sell it.
I have a weakness for this staging, too, because it's got a young-or-at-least-their-own-age Gremin that Tatyana seems genuinely fond of. I have basically a huge soft spot for Gremin because as canon goes, Tatyana is stuck with him, so he might as well be someone that she legit likes and has chemistry with, and usually he's cast as some super old guy where it's impossible to imagine any chemistry whatsoever — which to be fair is at least mildly supported by Pushkin. But anyway Stoyanova and Petrenko do have chemistry and what appears to be genuine emotion in the Gremins' marriage.
ahhhhh this opera!!
