Eugene Onegin, Royal Opera, 19 December 2015

Olga (Oksana Volkova), Eugene Onegin (Dmitri Hvorostovsky), and Tatyana (Nicole Car)
Images: Bill Cooper/ROH

 

Royal Opera House

Tatyana – Nicole Car

Eugene Onegin – Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Young Tatyana – Emily Ranford
Mme Larina – Diana Montague
Filipyevna – Catherine Wyn Rogers
Olga – Oksana Volkova
Peasant Singer – Elliot Goldie
Young Onegin – Tom Shale-Coates
Lensky – Michael Fabiano
Monsieur Triquet – Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Captain – David Shipley
Zaletsky – James Platt
Guillot – Luke Price
Prince Gremin – Ferruccio Furlanetto

Kasper Holten (director)

Mia Stensgaard (set designs)
Katrina Lindsay (costumes)
Wolfgang Göbbel (lighting)
59 Productions (video)
Signe Fabricius (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus and Extra Chorus (chorus master: Renata Balsadonna)

Dancers

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Semyon Bychkov (conductor)

 

 

 

The first revival of Kasper Holten’s Royal Opera production of Eugene Onegin (reviewed here the first time around) brought one major advantage, undoubtedly worth the visit to Covent Garden alone, namely the conducting of Semyon Bychkov – and, of course, alongside that the playing of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Vocally, it was for me far more of a mixed bag, although the audience seemed wildly enthusiastic. As for the staging itself, I was less convinced than last time. There remains a good deal to have one think – presumably that was the reason for the sadly predictable display from the house’s first-night animal-noises department – but the changes made, combined with lesser acting strength, above all in the title role, sometimes makes for a confusing evening dramatically.

 

Young Tatyana (Emily Ranford) with her
elder self

 

 

 

The central idea of memory is a good one; it is, after all, the work’s own. The bookish Tatyana receives her inspiration through recollection and the haunting of the present – or, at times, perhaps the future – by the central pair’s younger selves has considerable effect. It would have more, however, were there more dramatic commitment on Dmitri Hvorostovksy’s part; especially before the interval, he seemed content merely to stand and sing. Moreover, his ‘double’ lacks the charisma of Tatyana’s. The production offers confusion of its own; it is, for example, unclear – and not, I think, in a productive fashion – why the elder Tatyana sings the Letter Scene to her younger self. Would it not make more sense if singers and ‘doubles’ swapped roles as appropriate (not the actual artists, of course, but they could surely don younger and older ‘appearance’ and costumes). Memory can play tricks, but I am not sure that is the point being made here; perhaps it is, and I missed it.

More fundamentally, though, I felt more strongly than last time the loss of what is surely the underlying theme, even if involuntarily so on the composer’s part, of the opera. This is a staging whose heterosexuality would warm the heart of Vladimir Putin. Perhaps that allows greater agency on Tatyana’s part; I was especially intrigued by thinking of her writing her drama as a counterpart to the ‘masculine’ – and, rightly so, whatever the uncomprehending complaints one heard, often from people who know not their Prague from their Vienna – writing of Holten’s Don Giovanni. That is not strongly pursued, though, partly, I think, as a consequence of less dancing than first time around; the doubles are there enough to irritate, but not long enough now really to make their point fully coherent. That Tatyana is a creation of a gay man – and surely this screams from the score – there is no visual sign at all. More damagingly, though, the principal relationship in the opera, that between Onegin and Lensky, is merely that of the frightened surface. Of the homoeroticism that is less a subtext than the text of a non-ideological understanding of the work we again see nothing. So Lensky is merely jealous of Onegin’s ‘flirtation’ with Olga. That the truest and most deadly love is between the two men is entirely ignored: a retrograde step indeed. I do not think for one moment that this is intended in Russian Minister of Culture fashion, but the likes of Vladimir Medinsky would have little to argue with – which should give pause for thought.

 

Mme Larina (Diana Montague) and Lensky (Michael Fabiano)

It is, then, perhaps a little unreasonable to complain that the singers play their roles in such a way, although I am sure that there was greater psychological depth in the relationship between Simon Keenlyside’s Onegin and Pavol Breslik’s Lensky. Hvorostovsky proved a little more engaged dramatically after the interval, but wooden indeed before, although, given his recent travails, it was impossible not to feel sympathy for him. His singing was often deeply impressive vocally, but that is not necessarily enough; memories of Keenlyside were too strong for me. Mine certainly seemed to be a minority view concerning Michael Fabiano’s Lensky; he received a roar of applause both at the end and – deplorably – during the fifth scene. I could not question Fabiano’s commitment, which put that of almost everyone else to shame. However, for me, the timbre and, more important, the emoting style of his performance did not quite sound ‘right’ for the work and the character, more suited perhaps to the world of Italian verismo. It was, I have to admit, a performance very much in keeping, though, with the heteronormativity of the production; this was, as I said, a committed performance – of a lovelorn young man distraught at the loss of his girl. Nicole Car offered an attractive soprano voice as Tatyana, and acted well too; I did not, though, find a great deal of insight beyond that. Memories of Krassimira Stoyanova, as with those of her Onegin, were not effaced. Oksana Volkova was a decent enough Olga, but again without any particular individuality. The stand-out performance was for me Jean-Paul Fouchécourt’s deliciously stylish Monsieur Triquet, sung with such perfect attention to words and line that I longed to hear it again. Ferruccio Furlanetto’s Prince Gremin was a little rough around the vocal edges at times, but still interesting to hear. Diana Montague as Mme Larina and Catherine Wyn Rogers as Filipyevna shone as last time. The choral singing was excellent too, save – and here some of the soloists were at fault too – for a few too many discrepancies between stage and pit.

 

Tatyana and Prince Gremin (Ferruccio Furlanetto)

It was, however, as I started by saying, in the pit that the greatest honours lay. Bychkov had the orchestra sound – as it always does under him – as one of the greatest in the world, utterly responsive to his touch. The strings were febrile and warmly Romantic, the utter antithesis of any absurd ‘period’ affectations; the woodwind were as full of character as I have ever heard in this work. Implacable brass at full throttle might almost have been from St Petersburg. Rubato, especially the lingering at the end of phrases, was greater than one often hears, always with its own justification, always having one sit up and listen, both to savour the moment and to breathe out when the story resumed. Broader tempo variations were again well calculated, dramatically convincing. There was some breathtakingly soft playing – for instance, the ravishing sonic cushion for M. Triquet’s final lines – which could not have stood in greater, more tellingly intimate contrast with the Fatal climaxes. Bychkov understands what is and what is not ‘symphonic’ in Tchaikovsky’s score – and communicated it in what, Daniel Barenboim notwithstanding, is probably the best-conducted, certainly the most orchestrally variegated, performance of Eugene Onegin I have heard.

 

Hvorostovsky/Ilja - Fauré, Taneyev, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky, 21 October 2011

Barbican Hall

Fauré – Automne, op.18 no.3
Sylvie, op.6 no.3
Après un rêve, op.7 no.1
Fleur jetée, op.39 no.2
Taneyev – All are sleeping, op.17 no.10
Menuet, op.26 no.9
Not the wind, blowing from the heights, op.17 no.5
The winter road, op.32 no.4
Stalactites, op.26 no.6
The restless heart is beating, op.17 no.9
Liszt – Oh! quand je dors, S.282
Sonetti del Petrarca, S.270/1 and 3
Tchaikovsky – Six Romances, op.73

Dmitri Hvorostovsky (baritone)
Ivari Ilja (piano)


This was in some ways rather a strange ‘event’. It is not entirely unheard of for a singer to be the main attraction in a song recital, but I have never seen it illustrated to the extent that the singer was allotted his own ‘solo’ bow whilst his poor companion stayed offstage. That was clearly what Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s fans wanted, however, for they reserved their greatest applause for that moment – even more than when they ruined the conclusion of Liszt’s first Petrarch Sonnet by pre-emptively applauding so as to obliterate the final piano chords. An equal annoyance was the insistence upon applauding after every song, worst of all during the performance of Tchaikovsky’s Six Romances, op.73. But there was clearly no reflection from such listeners; they simply wanted to applaud and then to hear the next number. Hvorostovsky did not of course invite such behaviour directly; nor, however, did he entirely discourage it. Granting encores, he veered dangerously close to the manner of a cruise-line crooner. Moreover, his general bearing was often more that of a singer delivering a recital of arias rather than of song. His figure-hugging suit and matinée idol looks doubtless contributed to the hysteria: he certainly has an excellent line in smouldering, impassive stance .

Much of that is a great pity, for Hvorostovsky is a fine singer, who deserves to be heard as such. Admittedly, the opening Fauré group was odd. One can certainly respect Hvorostovsky's journey outside the comfort zone: this is someone who could undoubtedly satisfy, even inspire, audiences if he never strayed from Russian song. By the same token, however, one cannot ignore the weirdness of idiom. This was, perhaps unsurprisingly, very Russian-inflected, or rather Russian-accented, Fauré, not just in terms of pronunciation, though there were some very odd vowel sounds indeed, but also in terms of style and general tone. Pianist, Ivari Ilja to a certain extent followed suit. Indeed, I should not have been surprised to hear that the opening Automne had been written by Tchaikovsky. Sylvie was lighter, both in vocal and pianistic terms; Ilja handled Fauré’s modulations particularly well. Yet it was unclear that the words meant anything very much in performance, an impression underlined by Hvorostovsky’s broad grin at the end, when the words read – one could not necessarily hear them – ‘Tout pour mon cœur n’est que douleur!’ Après un rêve was more operatic than one might expect, but could take it (just about), and there was a splendid sense of anger to the closing Fleur jetée, though some words were again simply incomprehensible. The piano part was despatched in grandly Romantic fashion: impressive, if not quite what Fauré might have expected, even in this, somewhat atypical song.

The Taneyev group fared much better. Although Hvorostovsky really only came into his own in the second song, there was already  in the opening All are sleeping a marked improvement in terms of idiom. The Menuet benefited greatly from the classicising quality imparted to its opening by Ilja (not entirely unlike M. Triquet in Eugene Onegin). Both artists properly darkened their tone for the fourth and fifth stanzas, in which the mood of the ball is disrupted, and presented a fine portrayal of disintegration thereafter. This is really rather an interesting song – at least on a first hearing. Hvorostovsky’s gift for characterisation, even when of a stock nature, was on display recounting the timid gaze that shone with a tear. Not the wind, blowing from the heights proved a charming interlude prior to the cold urgency with which the striking song, The winter road, was brought to our attention. Though Hvorostovsky’s tone could sometimes harden, it really did not matter. Stalactites – I cannot imagine there are many vocal treatments of the theme – seared itself into the consciousness through the fine performance of the piano part, its downward freezing patterns highly evocative. (Were one to need reminding of the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, this would be a useful aide-mémoire.) Operatic urgency told in The restless heart is beating: the heart was clearly restless – and relentless – indeed. Taneyev emerged here as a considerably more interesting composer than his chamber music suggests.

That said, there was no doubting the rise in temperature occasioned after the interval by the arrival of Liszt. Hvorostovsky’s French sounded somewhat improved in Oh! quand je dors, but it was in the two Petrarch Sonnets that he truly shone. (What a pity we could not have heard all three!) His Italian was much better than his French, but more important still was the Romantically impassioned, at times almost Wagnerian, quality he imparted to delivery of words and music. There was the occasional coarseness to climaxes, notably in the first stanza of ‘Pace non trovo’, but the proof of the pudding lay in being reminded what magnificent songs these are. I really did not mind them being more or less transformed into arias, save for the aforementioned applause. Even the occasional slip concerning the words – something very odd happened in the final line of ‘I’ vidi in terra angelici costumi’ was of relatively minor importance.

Finally came the enchanting set of Tchaikovsky romances. It was clear from the outset that both singer and pianist had command both of form and of that ineffable Tchaikovskian sadness, though it was unpardonable that the ending of ‘We sat together’ was compelled to compete with a mobile telephone for attention. ‘Night’ was especially impressive, the lugubrious piano introduction truly foreshadowing the intensifying words that followed; ‘The candle is flickering…/The gloomy darkness fermenting …/And my heart is being squeezed/so mysteriously by sorrow…’. ‘On this moonlit night’ was performed with grand sweep, almost as if in a single breath, whilst ‘The sun has set’ was genuinely moving, clearly heartfelt. The final ‘Again, as before, alone’ was darkly tragic, marked by a painful tread of regret that would not have been out of place in the ‘Pathétique’ Symphony.

There was a very odd claim, however, in Christopher Cook’s programme note that ‘Tchaikovsky’s ear was as much tin as Richard Strauss’s when it came to poetry!’ Having almost no Russian myself, I cannot comment when it comes to Tchaikovsky’s choice of verse, though surely his use of Pushkin was not entirely arbitrary. However, it seems to me a bizarre claim in the case of Strauss: it would be almost impossible to find a better-read composer. But then, Cook’s assessment of Liszt – ‘here is a composer who reminds us that you can change your national style as easily as exchanging a silk shirt for the Abbé’s soutane – was at least as misleading.