Eugene Onegin's story reflects an integral part of Tchaikovsky's tumultuous and romantic love life: na??ve young person professes love to another, gets rejected and is then begged to come back.
In real life, the na??ve young person was Tchaikovsky's wife, Miliukova, who had written romantic letters to the composer for months before their marriage. In the opera, the na??ve one is Tatyana, who writes a melodramatic love-professing letter to the handsome Onegin, and is then rebuffed. Tchaikovsky's marriage supposedly failed because he was gay; Onegin's attempt to return to Tatyana years later fails because he is too late.
But while the superb musicianship of the ensemble, leads and orchestra impresses during this latest Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) production, not much else does.
On the whole, "Eugene Onegin," based on the verse of Russian national hero Pushkin, is boring and best appreciated by only the heartiest fans of opera, Pushkin, Tchaikovsky or unhappy love stories, who can sit through its three hour running time. In short, the real-life story remains more interesting.
Soprano Maria Kanyova (Tatyana), tenor Garrett Sorenson (Vladimir Lensky), and baritone Mel Ulrich (Yevgeny Onegin) give top performances throughout the entire program.
They have no problem filling the theatre with their rich voices during every solo, duet, and ensemble piece, and the choral segments featuring the entire cast are a pleasure to listen to.
The orchestra, led by Maestro Stephen Lord, deftly interprets the score, which features many woodwind solos, a couple of fanfares, and lots of gushing melodrama.
The two most anticipated scenes in "Eugene Onegin" include a letter-writing scene in which Tatyana composes a letter professing her love to Onegin, and a duel scene during which Onegin shoots his best friend Lensky.
Kanyova successfully carries her long solo letter scene, completely embodying the innocence and na??ve youthfulness of her love-struck character ("Everyone calls me a child ... playful, carefree, and light of heart.") She sits alone in the dark, on an antique wooden bed until "dawn," when she's interrupted by a concerned babushka-clad grandmother.
The music is predictably gushing and lyrical, and all goes well until director James Robinson decided that Onegin should awkwardly appear by the bedside in white linen as a personification of Tatyana's dreams; it's cheesy, weird-looking, and doesn't work.
The more exciting duel scene features appropriately tense music, most notably the heartbeat sounds of the basses and cellos, which anticipate the untimely and tragic death of Lensky (the fact that he's the genius that proposed the duel, however, loses him pity points).
To accompany the great musical performance during this scene is the fake snowfall, which is admittedly one of the coolest parts of the opera.
The snow goes particularly well with the twelve full-sized birch trees comprising most of the elegantly simple set. But while the trees look great during the duel scene, for example, when the characters are actually supposed to be in the woods, their immobility poses a problem during every indoor scene. Needless to say, having twelve birch trees in Tatyana's bedroom might seem like a great idea at first, but its novelty wears off quickly.
The actors wear humorously stereotypical Russian fashions. Babushka-clad women dance joyfully in ensemble scenes, and, in some of the more upscale scenes, the militaristic-looking conservative aristocrats look like they've just returned from lunch with the Czar.
The rest of the story contains few exciting moments. Notable exceptions include the dancing peasants accompanied by waltz-like melodies, and two ballroom scenes featuring loud fanfare and aristocratic costumes.
But neither the story nor the d?©cor are enough to maintain interest during slower, filler-like segments because this opera lacks the ridiculousness typically present in more famous Italian and French pieces.
Onegin, upon learning that Tatyana will not take him back, recognizes that "happiness was so close at hand ... but now out of reach." His story is similarly out of reach for anyone not fully immersed in the world of opera.
