Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

Last week I hit I my local music store a DVD of Eugene Onegin that was recorded live last year at Salzburg Festival. It was expensive, $35 but I bought it. Hell I thought that I know all committed to recording media Onegin production and I took this one as a challenge to my erudition… :-)

Well, the Onegin was conducted by Daniel Barenboim and was played by Wiener Philharmoniker. I generally hate Barenboim conducting (after Chicago), I much prefer him to speak then conducts but it was Wiener Philharmonic and it was Live… Well I took the risk…

The cast was a very good mix of native Russians and non Russians – I very much like this combinations.  The chorus was local Wiener Staatsopernchor. The production was by someone local as well. The perfuming hall was the huge Grosses Festspielhaus  that is in my view not suited for this “chamber opera” but it was what it was.

Whatever you do not buy this DVD. The idiots who set the production not only absolutely missed the flow and the “behavior” of the plot but they rather violated any imaginary fabrics of the opera. It is not that I was annoyed of the contemporary flavor of the predication – in fact I like it to my surprise. However, everything – from the mannerism of jesters to the conduct on the sate were about off. It would be the same as a ballerina in “Swan Lake” would suddenly dance like a Barcelona’s stripper….

It looks to me like the sniggered were strangled and fought with idiotic production of the opera… but the rest was quite good, in fact good wonderful. The hated by me Barenboim showed off a very high class and Wiener Philharmoniker did the music absolutely brilliant. The sound on DVD was not good, the engineers did fuck sound up during the “mastering” but it is very ease to extrapolate what Vienna and Barenboim did. Here and there they missed but all together it was the best music-part I heard from the contemporary production. Then the singers…

Russian Anna Samuil sings Tatiana and I like very much what she did, even thought I am not impresed what she did as “older” Tatiana. Peter Mattei as Onegin and Joseph Kaiser as Lenski, both non-Russian were fantastic, particularly Peter Mattei. The Lenski part was the only that more or less was able to watch. The Onegin’s acting was so much mis-presents that it was just a disaster. My favorite character in opera – the nanny was sang by an Russian, she was OK but the idiot who made the stage acting portray nanny so ridicules that I was truly revolting. Another Italian Ferruccio Furlanetto did very different but VERY interesting Prince Gremin. What a joy of Italians sing Tchaikovsky!

Anyhow, avoid DVD and if the sound track is available then get a CD. Who knows, perhaps the CD will be less “mastered” and the Barenboim’s orchestra will not flood the stage with barbaric bass-attack.  Anyhow – my great appreciation to the singers, to Barenboim and to musicians. Peter Mattei and Anna Samuil are two singers to watch very careful. More CDs from them are in my aim to buy…

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site