[Met Performance] CID:251070
Eugene Onegin {39} Metropolitan Opera House: 10/15/1977.
(Debuts: Isola Jones, Ray Diffen
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
October 15, 1977
EUGENE ONEGIN {39}
P. I. Tchaikovsky-P. I. Tchaikovsky/Shilovsky
Eugene Onegin...........Sherrill Milnes
Tatiana.................Teresa Zylis-Gara
Lensky..................Nicolai Gedda
Olga....................Isola Jones [Debut]
Prince Gremin...........Martti Talvela
Larina..................Jean Kraft
Filippyevna.............Batyah Godfrey Ben-David
Triquet.................Andrea Velis
Captain.................Richard Best
Zaretsky................Andrij Dobriansky
Conductor...............James Levine
Stage Director..........Bodo Igesz
Set designer............Rolf Gérard
Costume designer........Ray Diffen [Debut]
Lighting designer.......Gil Wechsler
Choreographer...........Norbert Vesak
[This was the first performance at the Met of Eugene Onegin in Russian. Previous performances had been in Italian or English.]
Eugene Onegin received seven performances this season.
Review of Mike Sullivan of the Associated Press
'Onegin' Returns to Met Opera
NEW YORK - Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" returned to the Metropolitan Opera after an absence of 13 years Saturday night, unfolding a tale of typically Slavic suffering set to some of the composer's most beautiful melodies. Well-sung by a deluxe international cast, the performance illustrated why the opera deserves hearing - but outside of Russia - is never going to be a staple of the repertory.
The plot, adapted front Pushkin's poem of the same name, is a variation on the boy-meets-girl theme. Here, girl meets boy, boy rejects girl, girl marries wealthy nobleman, boy decides he loves her after all, but girl now rejects him. There's also a duel in which boy lulls girl's sister's fiancé, just so everybody can be unhappy. All this is set to sensitive, lyrical music, but it simply doesn't pack the theatrical punch that Verdi and Puccini, for example, bring to many equally silly plots.
As the heroine, Tatyana, and the title character she loves, Polish soprano Teresa Zylis-Gara and American baritone Sherrill Milnes sang smoothly, though both had occasional pitch problems on their high notes. Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda was outstanding as Lenski, who loses the duel, and his sweetheart, Olga, was well-portrayed by American mezzo-soprano Isola Jones, who was making her Met debut.
Having the great Finnish bass Martti Talvela sing Prince Gremin's one aria was a luxury on the order of getting Yankee skipper Billy Martin to coach your son's Little League team.
Met music director James Levine conducted lightly, bringing out the delicacy in Tchaikovsky's orchestrations without letting the music sink into the self-pitying emotion to which the composer was subject.