The Nederlandse Opera’s new production of Tchaikovsky’s Evgeny Onegin cannot help being a must-see: it features only Mariss Jansons and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in the pit and the controversial Stefan Herheim as stage director. Before I write further, I will say straightaway that it is worthwhile the trip.
Although I was disappointed to see Herheim repeating his historic approach as in his Bayreuth Parsifal (it would be sad if he, of all people, turns out to be predictable), the formula does work. Onegin is a man in search of identity – and Russia has faced a similar problem as a nation. When we first meet both in this staging, the shadow of the Romantic world still haunts them. Revolution makes its appearance with the end of innocence, when Lensky challenges Onegin to a duel before revolutionary soldiers. The ball in Moscow is a parade of Sovietic icons – ballet dancers, athletes, astronauts – a collective self-affirmation that does not provide answers to Onegin’s individual questions. In this ball, Tatiana and Gremin are just idealized visions. Their real appearance, in Putin’s Russia, finally proves to be more violent in their new money/old habits-milieu. Even if you disagree with the analogy, Pushkin’s storyline is given an interesting twist when told in flashback. Onegin is in a kitsch-glamour hall when he sees Tatiana as a socialite. Suddenly, the glass-and-metal room centerstage becomes Larina’s house by virtue of a revolving structure. Past and present intertwine: Tatiana and Onegin write their letters simultaneously while Gremin sleeps in his bed. Sets and costumes are ingeniously and beautifully conceived (I only dislike the cheap computer-made projections – and maybe the guy in a bear costume borrowed from Herheim’s Lohengrin at the Lindenoper) and make the complex shiftings in time and in scope (social/private) coherent.
Mariss Jansons offers a subtle and elegant view of the score. It does not sound typically “Russian” in its transparent textures, clear strings and avoidance of emotionalism, but is somehow faithful to the melancholic atmosphere of the work. His sense of balance between stage and pit is exemplary, not to mention his ability to increase volume without saturating the aural picture with excessive loudness.
Crowning the performance, Krassimira Stoyanova’s immaculate Tatiana. The voice is exquisite and expressive, the technique is solid and she inhabits the role musically and scenically. Elena Maximova too has the perfect voice and attitude for Olga, but her sense of pitch leaves something to be desired. Olga Savova and Nina Romanova are ideally cast as Larina’s and Filipevna. Andrei Dunaev is a reliable Lenski – the voice is spontaneous, but his big aria was not really thrilling (or maybe I’ve been spoiled by Piotr Beczala in New York and Rolando Villazón in Berlin). Mikhail Petrenko offered a sensitive account of his aria – a little bit more body in his high register would have been helpful. As for Boje Skovhus, although he sang better than in Berlin in 2009, his pleasant and well-focused baritone still lacks some depth in this role, but the truth is his overacting is always hard to overlook – even when relatively tamed by a strong-handed director
I HEAR VOICES 
Looking forward hopefully to be able to hear the audio broadcast of this production coming up on Nederlands Radio 4. Thanks to your creative, vivid & spontaneous desciption of this production, all kinds of associations came up for me, one following the other, as I read this critique. It all played out in my mind’s eye.
Thank you, Jerold. Let me know what you thought about it when you’ve listened to the broadcast.
The guy in the bearsuite is a quote from the orignal Jevgeny Onegin by Pushkin. The center of this novel is a dreamscène of Tatjana, where she is followed by a bear which brings her to a shelterplace, and then it turns out that Onegin is there, and later on also Olga and Lenski. The scene resembles, or better said: predicts, very much the party thrown because of Tatjana’s nameday.
You are right about the bear – the effect in the staging is rather comic than nightmarish, but you are, of course, right. Here it is: “And something, someone, seems to appear:/ a huge, untamed and shaggy bear!/Tatiana screams and aloud it roars”. On second thought, the bear was a famous USSR symbol, as in the Moscow Olympic games. In any case, I don’t feel that the way Herheim used it is effective as the way Pushkin himself used it.
Just listened to the broadcast of this Onegin today. The greatest thing about this performance was the conducting of Mariss Jansons. He never slacks in his energy, yet he gets all the tenderness out the score without any hint of banal sentimentality.
However, I am bit confused about the previous reviews I read. For my tastes, Bo Skovhus was wonderful. I see Onegin as an uncomfortable character, a frustrated creative-type stifled by his own aristocratic background/traditions. Too bad Skovhus’ vocal power didn’t hold up the way his vocal interpretation did. By the last act he was running out of steam… first his very bottom notes went, then his lower register started to sound alarmingly hollow, like it was disappearing. At the end of the opera in the final duet with Tatiana, he spoke most of the phrases that fell in his lower register… but Skovhus literally gives his all: so for this listener he triumphed anyways. And of course, someone could say in his defense that this was a dramatic ploy: as depression was getting a grip on Onegin, Skovhus expressed his diminishing interest in life vocally as he was, indeed, ‘losing it’. I have seen such excuses made before and in spite of the lack of credence, some of them do have a ring of truth inherent in them. I will have to go back and listen to it again and note what I hear the second time (which often is vastly different). I really didn’t catch that many details about some of the other singers because I was so bowled over by Skovhus, who really does dominate the proceedings. The tenor sounded good enough for an international performance to my ears, but at Tatiana’s birthday party scene in the house of Madame Larina, it was evident that he is not the singing actor Skovhus is. Prince Gremin’s aria sounded very good, as did Triquet’s tribute to Tatiana at that same party.
You know we all come to these works with our own personal baggage of preferences. My favorite Onegin was Jorma Hynninen. Skovhus wasn’t as aristocratic as Hynninen’s Onegin, nor did he have the dark, warm personable tone that I like so much (if a baritone has such a tone), yet for me still Skovhus comes as close as anyone in performance quality to Hynninen’s Onegin.
In keeping with the theme of this Onegin, Bulgarian born and educated Stojanova probably comes closest in terms of pure vocal style to representing the way I understand this production plays out. Bulgaria has a cultural tradition that was originally Greek-Mediterranean, but was occuplied for centuries by Slavs; thus by adoption it became part of the identity crises and political upheavals this production appears to be dealing with. Stojanova’s idiomatic Russian diction was a great pleasure to listen to, despite her lack of overtones and her somewhat drier, covered vocal sound. I prefer a brighter upper register with more of an acuti ring to the dramatic climaxes than Stojanova can provide, but again in keeping with the values of this production, Stojanova’s more proletariat-friendly no-nonsense vocal style apparently suits this production to a ‘T’.
Stojanova’s musicianship, her trademark of openness/dramatic sincerity through an extremely inner, personal quality of expression was evident in her performance here. Very genteel yet accessible, despite the sensitive and considerately subtlety of her portrayl, she sounded like a “loner” among the aristocrats. Vocally her vivid and moving emotional expression seemed always to be turned inward toward herself, not to the audience nor directly to any of the doings onstage. Even in the final duet, despite the text she sang, the tone of her voice never sounded accusative directly toward Onegin, although she did display a combination of fear, control and depairing comprehension. It was as if Stojanova was in a dimension removed from the actuality of her participation in it, deeply affected by as well as totally sympathetic to Onegin’s situation, but embarrassed to find herself part of it. It would have helped perhaps if she managed to make herself sound a little more aroused, maybe slightly raising the pitch & volume at the end of the most dramatic phrases in the duet to express her frustration. But that isn’t her style so why should I expect her to try it? She has already proven herself both on the concert stage and in opera to be one of the greatest interpreters of our time.
Hello, Jerold!
I guess I would have to listen to audio alone to form an opinion of Skovhus. On the theatre, his acting is so exaggerated that it difficult to find any sincerity in what he is doing. In any case, I agree that the tonal quality is elegant and suggests a dapper Onegin. Although his low notes decreased in quality during the performance I’ve attended, I wouldn’t say he became as rough as it seems he was in the broadcast (I still haven’t listened to it). I haven’t listened to (let alone seen) Hynninen in the role – it is a very different voice from Skovhus, as you said.
As for Stoyanova, I agree with your description – I believe she could have produced more powerful top notes if she wanted, but I guess they do not fit into her concept of the role. Although Tatyana is seen as an aristocrat in the closing scene, she has never had a “commanding” nature. I must explain however that her last utterance in this production is made while she is being pushed into an elevator. So there is an “acoustic” hindrance to all that.
One question – have you seen Zylis-Gara in that role? I’m curious to hear what you’re going to say.
Yes, I saw Zylis-Gara first sing Tatiana in 1977 at the Met. I wish Sirius Met radio would rebroadcast the 1978 Saturday Matinee archive performance of Onegin with Gedda, Milnes & Zylis-Gara. Unfortunately my memory is getting somewhat ‘spotty’ in old age, but I do remember the beauty of her voice, matched only by Kabaivanska in that role. I believe (but I’m not absolutely sure) that Onegin at the Met was sung in english translation up until the 1979 production. Zylis-Gara came back to the role again in 1979 and sang a Tatiana in Russian.
— The first time I ever heard the opera was around 1969 on an old LP recording of that old 1952 WDR radio broadcast performance in deutscher Sprache with Sena Jurinac as Tatiana. From the days when Zylis-Gara was singing, the Tatianas that I can still remember seeing in live performance were Evelyn Lear (San Francisco 1971), Galina Vishnevskaja (Boston Symphony 1975), Makvala Kasrashvili (Bolshoi 1975), Tamara Milashkina (Bolshoi 1975); Teresa Kubiak (Met 1979) and Raina Kabaivanska (Met 1979 – they are broadcasting Kabaivanska’s Tatiana on Sirius radio these days but I haven’t captured it yet – she was probably my favorite Tatiana because of her smooth elegant but very expressive singing and the incredible beauty of her tone — Kabaivanska offered a little more both dramatically & musically than Zylis-Gara did). I also remember seeing Magdalena Hajossyova as Tatiana at the old Berlin Staatsoper Unter die Linden many many years ago; as well as Wolfgang Brendl singing an Onegin with Klára Takács as Olga at Zurich Oper in deutscher Sprache (but I don’t remember who sang Tatiana). Later on in the 1980’s I remember going to see Natalia Rom & Mirella Freni as Tatiana at the Met.
— My favorite recording of Zylis-Gara is a live Rossini Guglielmo Tell from Hamburg 1974 on Myto with Bonisolli as Arnoldo & Taddei as Tell. Zylis-Gara: beautiful phrasing & pianissimos as Matilda.
I have listened to the broadcast in Russian – Zylis-Gara, Isola Jones, Nicolai Gedda, Sherril Milnes et al. Z-G was in glowingly beautiful voice. The final scene tests her a tiny little bit, but one easily forgiver her that.
So you saw both Milashkina and Vinevshkaya. Now I’m envious 🙂
I can imagine that Kabaivanska could offer a more exciting account of the role of Tatjana, while still being able to produce lovely mezza voce etc. It is a pity that there are so few recordings with her.
The first time a Russian opera was given at the Met in its original language was Pique Dame, on December 27, 1972. A performance that, to my everlasting regret, I had to miss because of logistical issues. (I did manage to see Siegfried, Otello, and Zauberflote on that trip so the trip wasn’t a total loss!)