The Catskill Chronicle

Renee Fleming as Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.”

By Barry Plaxen

Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel, Eugene Onegin was adapted into lyrical scenes by the great Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1879. The libretto by his brother Modest and Konstantin Shilovsky is based on Tchaikovsky’s initial setting of the scenes and retains some the poetry in Puskin’s story of a selfish protagonist who comes to regret his supercilious rejection of the heroine’s love and his outlandish behavior that led to a duel with his best friend and his friend’s death.

The story deals with Onegin’s perceptions of rural and cosmopolitan Russian life, but lacks clarity due to the librettists’ concentration on the unrequited love Titania has for Onegin. In a way, it is similar to La Boheme in that the scenes are episodic with no dramatic connections from one to another, affording the viewer an opportunity to experience an opera with deep concentration upon the music. Though the beautiful music is not as lyrical, expansive, dramatic or as moving as Puccini’s for Boheme, like Boheme the raison d’etre for viewing the opera lies in listening to the singing of the three leads and one would wish for superb world class artists for such an entertainment.

And boy! oh boy! did we get just that at Sullivan Community College (SCCC) on July 7 with the Live From The Met in HD Summer Series showing of Robert Carson’s basic production: no sets, just furniture and props. Attention was thereby given to the singers, three of the greatest artists in the world today: Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Onegin, Renee Fleming as the youthful and love-struck Titiana, and Ramon Vargas as Lenski – Onegin’s best friend and suitor of Titiana’s sister, Olga.

As usual in the Live From The Met series, the opera singers are magnificent actors also. And, though, in this case that did add to the believability of the characters, it was not as paramount as it often needs to be. No, not with these three artists giving the audience what one hopes for in opera and rarely gets: a memory for a lifetime, a perfect performance with singing that cannot be bettered anywhere, anyhow, anytime.

Singing like this is expected from soprano Renee Fleming and lyric baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky as they are world renowned performing and recording artists and, in a sense, household names. There is no need to describe their abilities and what magic they conjured up with their musicality and techniques. Suffice it to say they were each in perfect voice.

The surprise of the evening, because he is not yet as well known, was Ramon Vargas as Lenski. Deeply immersed in his character, and with great makeup and costume (by Michael Levine), this Mexican tenor’s aura was as Russian poet as one can be.

In Act II, scene 2, as he waits for Onegin to arrive for the arranged duel, he reflects on the folly of his brief life and imagines his love, Olga, visiting his grave as he sings the aria Kuda, kuda. No detailed description is necessary here either as the singing was perfect, could not have been better in any way, and after the aria ended one knew from the atmosphere in the Seelig Auditorium that the entire audience was deeply moved and will always remember Vargas as Lenski.

The wonderful production was conducted by Valery Gergiev, who had a most interesting technique, not the usual hand, finger and arm movements. He almost seemed to be doing some sort of healing modality, like Reiki or similar, as his seemed to manipulate energy rather that direct an orchestra. But it worked. As usual with the Met, both the orchestra and chorus were also perfect.

The Live From The Met in HD series at SCCC continues through July with Ramon Vargas and Angela Gheorghiu in La Boheme on July 14 at 6:30pm, followed later by Puccini’s Turandot and Bizet’s Carmen. Don’t miss them.