Eugene Onegin

Just watched Eugene Onegin on DVD. This was filmed live at the Met in 2007. The title character was sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky; Renee Fleming sang Tatiana, and Ramon Vargas (who I saw in the DVD of La Boheme) sang Lensky.

Somehow I was both very drawn into this opera and very unmoved by it. That is, I had no trouble watching the four hours and 18 minutes of the performance. I was sucked in. On the other hand, I didn't respond to it emotionally; it didn't choke me up the way Der Rosenkavalier, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Turandot, and Simon Boccanegra did. Part of it might be that it isn't easy to watch an opera on DVD on my computer. It just isn't that comfortable.

Anyway, Renee Fleming was great. Interestingly, she seemed to sing in a slightly lower register. In fact, I think this opera had a lot of mezzos, and maybe even a few contraltos. It was very pleasant to hear these deeper female voices. Eugene Onegin is a cold character who later feels love and remorse, and while Hvorostovsky had no trouble communicating the chilly aspects of Onegin, the warmer, more passionate and more complex emotions didn't really come out. I find it hard to believe that Hvorostovsky isn't cold and arrogant in real life. Ramon Vargas had an exceptionally beautiful aria right before the duel.

The production was very sparse, which accentuated the drama and the emotion, and Tchaikovsky's music was beautiful. There were a lot of long stretches where there wasn't any singing, just the music moving the story along, and those were very effective moments.

Oh, and I didn't mind the Russian at all.