Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, Royal
Academy of Music, London, 11.3.2013
Madame Larina – Anna Harvey
Tatiana – Tereza Gevorgyan
Olga – Fiona Mackay
Filipievna – Rozanna Madylus
Eugene Onegin – Ross Ramgobin
Lensky – Stephen Aviss
Monsieur Triquet – Stuart
Jackson
Zaretsky – Samuel Pantcheff
Prince Gremin – Nicholas
Crawley
Captain – Samuel Queen
Royal Academy Opera Chorus
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Jane Glover (conductor)
John Ramster (director)
Adrian Linford (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)
Victoria Newlyn
(choreography)
 |
Annd Harvey (Mme Larina) and the chorus
Images: © Royal Academy of Music |
And still they come, not that
I am complaining in the slightest! London has certainly not done badly for
stagings of Eugene Onegin recently,
and it did not do badly here either; indeed, it, or rather the performers, did
very well indeed. Most of the operas I have seen at the Royal Academy of Music
have been smaller scale; so far as I can recall, the only other
nineteenth-century work was Béatriceet Bénédict, which of course is, by Berlioz’s standards, rather an
intimate work. One might say the same of Eugene
Onegin; after all, these ‘scenes’ from Pushkin were first performed at the
Moscow Conservatory. But there is nevertheless a grander, for want of a better
word ‘Romantic’, face to the work too – and there is ballet, or at least dance.
However, any fears that a nineteenth-century opera might be biting off more
than the RAM could chew were firmly banished.
Not everything was perfect,
of course, but then I could say the same about any other performance I have
heard. The orchestra took a while to get into its stride, noticeably more confident
after the first interval. There were a good few brass fluffs early on;
moreover, there were times when, with the best will in the world and even in a
small theatre, the strings (6.6.4.4.2) were simply too thin in tone. That said, what was perhaps rather more
surprising was how, especially as time went on, a glowing Romantic tone was
more fully achieved. Jane Glover ably shaped the musical action throughout,
displaying flexibility and not inconsiderable passion, without neglecting the
needs of her young singers. (In ‘normal’ circumstances, I have little patience
with the idea of a conductor ‘supporting’ singers, which normally seems to mean
holding back, but in a music school environment, matters are somewhat
different.) I do not mean this to be faint praise, but Glover’s account of the
score was infinitely preferable to the recent dismal showing by RobinTicciati at the Royal Opera House.
John Ramster’s production did
not provoke a great deal of thought, as Kasper Holten’s excellent ROH staging
certainly had. (It clearly, unsurprisingly, passed over a great number of
people’s heads, though seemed perfectly clear to me.) For a ‘traditional’
staging, however, it does its job well enough, granting the cast the
opportunity not only to don nineteenth-century apparel but also successfully to
follow commendably detailed stage direction. I was somewhat puzzled by what
looked rather like a crown of thorns above the stage prior to St Petersburg;
however, I realised, upon its disappearance, that it had been nothing so
conceptually provocative, merely an indication of the countryside. There is
nevertheless one particular directorial intervention at the end of the second
act: following the death of Lensky, we see a calculating Olga already having
moved on to the Captain from Mme Larina’s party. Victoria Newlyn’s choreography
is apt and well executed, a credit both to her and to the cast.
 |
Tereza Gevorgyan (Tatiana) and
Ross Ramgobin (Onegin) |
Not least of the difficulties
for the singers would have been the task of singing in Russian. (Thank goodness
it was not translated!) They must all have been very well coached – Glover
credited Ludmilla Andrew both for coaching and transliteration – since the
results ranged from good to excellent. Perhaps Tereza Gevorgyan, the Armenian
Tatiana, had an inbuilt advantage, but that did not explain her well-nigh
superlative assumption of the role more generally, especially later on.
Hesitance was well conveyed in stage terms during the opening scene, but the
greatest triumph was in her final scene with Onegin, when a rare degree of
agency was forged, making it clear that an empowered woman had turned the
tables on the man who had once rejected a girl from the country. The slight –
and I mean slight – metallic edge to Gevorgyan’s voice worked splendidly in
cutting through and soaring above the orchestra; I hope and expect to hear more
from her. Rozanna Madylus’s Filipievna, though of course a far smaller role,
was at least as impressive, a full assumption, visually as well as vocally
convincing, such as would have graced a major house. There was also much to
admire in Anna Harvey's eminently professional Mme Larina. Fiona Mackay’s Olga occasionally lacked
depth of tone, but was well acted, indeed exuberantly so, and for the most part
equally well sung.
I wondered during the first
act whether the relative stiffness of Ross Ramgobin’s Onegin was deliberate or
a matter of nerves. By the end of the opera, I was reasonably certain that it
had been the former, for he charted an excellent dramatic course, clearly
transformed by the fatal duel with Lensky. (Not for the first time, I could not
help but wish that more had been made by the director of the men’s ‘romantic
friendship’, a subtext so glaring that it verges upon a supertext; however,
Ramster’s production was unlikely to be the place where that would happen, and
so it proved.) Vocal confidence grew as the performance continued: a highly
creditable performance in a difficult role. Stephen Aviss’s Lensky suffered a
little by comparison. I had the impression that it was a directorial decision
to stress the airs of a poet, to render them slightly ridiculous, rather than
the character’s brooding Romanticism, but there might nevertheless have been
greater inwardness in performance too. Stuart Jackson verily stole the show, or
rather the second act, as a bumptious M Triquet. Even Zaretsky made his mark,
in the excellent hands of Samuel Pantcheff, making one wish the part were more
extended. Prince Gremin is a gift of a role to an established bass, but whilst sung
well by Nicholas Crawley, presents a greater challenge to a younger voice, a
challenge whose deepest notes were not fully surmounted. Choral singing was
excellent throughout; heft, clarity, and linguistic skill were equally impressive, no
mean feat in this opera.
