Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]

Product Description:
Studio: Uni Dist Corp (music)Release Date: 12/31/2007

Amazon.com:
This set, filmed at the Metropolitan Opera's February 2007 performances of Tchaikovsky's most popular opera, has just about everything going for it: an all-star cast in peak form, a great orchestra led by today's leading Russian conductor, and a striking stage production whose minimalist, often stark, sets manage to superbly suit this most Romantic of operas.

Drawn from Pushkin's classic, the opera tightly focuses on the story of Tatiana, a naive young girl who declares her love for a dashing rake (Onegin) who rejects her overtures. His arrogance surfaces leads to flirting with his best friend's fiancée and then to killing him in a duel. Plagued by remorse, a superficially reformed but still impossibly self-centered Onegin meets Tatiana at a ball, but now the childish country bumpkin is the glamorous wife of a Prince. He declares his love but she rejects him and leaves him alone, a solitary, tragic figure.

Renée Fleming's Tatiana is a triumph, her gorgeous soprano voice, intense acting and precise characterization make the complex young woman come alive. Her "Letter Scene," in which the singer must reveal the innermost thoughts of a confused soul, is as good as it gets, as Fleming fully reveals the young woman's joyous hopes of requited love and also her fears of rejection. In the final act, she's still attracted to the dashing Onegin but resolved to preserve her marriage. In the title role, Dmitri Hvorostovsky is her equal; his firm baritone fits the music like a velvet glove and his acting matches Fleming's in its intensity. He's especially fine in his last-act monologue, bursting with despair and passion. Tchaikovsky gave the work's most beautiful arias to Lenski, Onegin's friend. Ramon Vargas' mellifluous tenor is well-suited to the lyricism of Lenski's Act One love aria and to the poignant aria before his duel with Onegin. Lenski's anger at his friend in the ball scene is palpably menacing. As Olga, Tatiana's high-spirited sister and Lenski's fiancée, Elena Zaremba is fully up to the rest of the cast, her rich mezzo and pointed phrasing a strong point. Sergei Aleksaskin's Prince Gremin is a dignified presence, Larisa Schevchenko as Tatiana's old nurse is convincing, and the smaller roles are well sung and acted. Jean-Paul Fouchécourt is not only in excellent voice in the beautiful aria of Triquet, Tatiana's French tutor, but manages to invest his song with an apt touch of parody as well. Valery Gergiev's conducting is a major asset, and the MET Orchestra is in terrific form, with special kudos due to the soulful clarinet solos that are so important in the musical texture.

Producer Robert Carson imbues the work with Romantic glow and Michael Levine's spare sets are far more effective than one might think. The stage is strewn with leaves and framed by textured rods doing duty as birch trees in Act One; the ball scene similarly framed by a rectangle of chairs and side tables, both sets analogues for the character's imprisonment in their unbridled emotions. Video director Brian Large keeps his cameras well-focused on the action, to complete an Onegin that's the DVD version to get. --Dan Davis

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Customer Reviews

Rating: - Up and down
A splendid production of a great work.But buy it elsewhere;my copy skips tracks.
Rating: - Excellent Opera DVD
This is an excellent production and recording.I purchased it after seeing the live performance of the same production with an also excellent but different cast.The staging is spare but evocative and effective, and the performances, especially by Renee Fleming are truly memorable.One of the best opera DVD's I've seen.
Rating: - Fantastic production
I purchased this production to learn the opera prior to a family member performing the title role in an opera studio production.I found it easy to follow and the performance itself excellent.Renee Fleming is a favorite and she is excellent in this role.
Rating: - What can I add?
I have loved this opera for years!
I have four productions of it on DVD and nine on CD and LP (including one in English with Thomas Hampson and Kiri Te Kanawa) and I can say that the final act of this production is by far the most thrilling of them all,these two singers do not need any stage props to make it work, their superb voices, acting abilities and stage presence do it all!
BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVISSIMI!!!
Rating: - Evgeny Onegin, a revelation
I gave this version of Onegin 4 stars because, in spite of the outstanding performance by Dmitry Hvorostovsky and Valery Gergiev, one that thoroughly revealed the greatness of Tchaikovsky's score, the rest of the cast, in my opinion, did not fully reach that level of perfection. Renee Fleming has a gorgeous voice, her pitch is perfect but at moments in the first act she acts too much as a grown-up woman rather than as a sixteen-year-old Tatyana. Tatyana finds her emotional turmoil inexplicable until ... Read More