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Pushkin and Tchaikovsky. These names, these two hypnotizing sounds deeply touch the most subtle and intricate fibres of every Russian soul. The news about New Zealand opera performance based on the ingenious masterpieces by the great writer and outstanding composer could not pass without causing a great interest for Russian speaking New Zealanders.
“Eugene Onegin” is not the only creation by Pushkin–Tchaikovsky union. Another masterpiece, “The Queen of Spades”, one of the highest peaks in the history of opera, has been the final result of colossal work done by the composer for re-arranging Pushkin’s story and adopting it for the musical theatre. Being the first experience of the composer, “Onegin” is more close to its literature original; it sounds less sophisticated, yet breathes with youthfulness and sincerity.
Initially, Tchaikovsky was thinking of his “Onegin” as being performed by students. The composer wanted to create a truthful story of passionate young people facing the realities of life on the sharp verge of their feelings. Tchaikovsky believed that only young performers could naturally reproduce the images of emotionally unchained, spirited Lensky and Tatyana, as well as the other characters. Eugene Onegin, too, has to be a young, extraordinary, developing personality, with all his flashy sarcasm, nihilism and coldness being just masks to disguise his sensitive soul, deeply wrapped into the multiple layers of fake gloss of society and class.
New Zealand Opera Company used a brilliant opportunity to invite an outstanding young soprano Anna Leese for the role of Tatyana. Napier born beauty is one of the most promising lyrical sopranos on the world’s opera stage. Rich and tender tone of her soaring voice, bright dramatic temperament and perfect stage appearances make her an ideal Tatyana Larina, the key personage for the success of the opera with the title “Eugene Onegin” being merely a formality, because it is well known who the favorite heroine of Pushkin and Tchaikovsky is. The way Anna played her part during the night scene could be described in only one word – brilliant. However, it is a mystery, why opera director Patric Nolan made Tatyana sit almost motionless while writing the letter – one of the crucial moments of the story. In spite of the magnificent music and high level performance, this tremendously important scene turned out to be static and despondent. Other scenes with Tatyana were by far more impressive, with the final act becoming a real triumph for Anna Leese. Her interaction with William Dazeley (Onegin) here achieves the point, when sensuality of music and drama are breaking far beyond the borders of operatic art and burning the hearts of the audience with the flame of pure sizzling passion. Bright, rebellious appearance of the young singer creates such a perfect extra effect, that it becomes impossible to imagine how this young woman could run away from her own temptation.
Baritone William Dazeley as Onegin perfectly fitts the part of the hero who is less favored by the composer, giving us the picture of a self-absorbed dandy, who eventually turns into a suffering man, smitten by sudden feeling of love. By the way, this is typical Tchaikovsky’s way of showing Onegin’s character, because for Pushkin Eugene is far more complicated person. As a Russian listener, I would admit that Russian pronunciation by Dazeley is of exceptional quality and to me sounded clearer then that of Shualckoff (Lensky), Russian tenor, popular these days in Moscow opera circles.
Image of Lensky has become a perfect job of a director, his actions showed very distinctively why the duel had happened. Lensky was called by Pushkin ‘half-Russian’ and described in following words:
“Good looking, in the flower of age,
A poet and a Kantian sage
He’d brought back all the fruits of learning
From German realms of mist and steam,
Freedom’s enthusiastic dream,
A spirit strange, a spirit burning,
An eloquence of fevered strength,
And raven curls of shoulder length” (tr.Ch.Johnston)
As we know from the novel, Lensky is a few years younger then Onegin, he is not even 19, almost a boy, probably of southern descent (he is having black curly hair), with hot blood running in his veins. (I would like to remind to my readers, that to some extent Lensky was a self-portrait of the writer - Pushkin had endowed him with some of his own personal characteristics – qualities that a poet was desperately hiding, such as emotionality and explosiveness. Besides Pushkin was a quarter Ethiopian on his mother’s line.)
That is why we can assume that creating a proper image of Lensky is a hard task for a lyrical tenor – as the musical part is obviously written for this type of voice. Lyric tenors are used to portray rather sentimental or even timid characters, who need tender, light sound with great mezzo voce qualities. All of that we can find in Roman Shulackoff’s voice (though he did not manage to be perfectly in tune in some parts), but it could have been better to have some more fire and passion in his performance, as well as in his singing.
In my opinion, Lensky is still on the waiting list for his best interpretation on the opera stage.
Olga has found her successful interpretation, created by Kristen Darragh, young, but already well recognized mezzo-soprano from Auckland. Deep velvety sound of Kristen’s voice was giving a vivid picture of a spoiled child, which all of a sudden became a fatal woman for the whole story.
Andrew Glover with his immaculate performance of Monsieur Triquet couplets did what his turn was for – he distracted public’s attention from the drama which was unfolding at the ball and gave us a brilliant and stylish sample of Tchaikovsky’s favorite trick: a divertimento in opera or ballet.
Martin Snell as a Prince Gremin added some new colors to the well-known image: most features of his character are full of sincerity and trustfulness.
Madame Larina was beautifully portrayed by Patricia Wright and created an amazing ensemble together with Rosemary Gunn (Filipyevna).
Richard Green perfectly performed a somber second of Lensky, Zaretsky, and Daniel O’Conner sounded well in a small part of a Capitan.
Choir in the opera was of a very high class, combining excellent singing qualities with a very good level of acting and dance.
The work of Alexander Polianichko with the orchestra demonstrated his special feature – the violins sounded like one in the perfect unison, which is no wonder, remember that Polianichko is not only an internationally acclaimed conductor, but also a professional violinist!
Costumes were strictly in the style of Pushkin’s period of time and were made with a very sharp feeling of the color, creating a perfect ensemble with simple, but expressive stage decorations. (Production Designer – Genevieve Blanchett)
Amazing work of a lighting designer Bernie Tan competed with a director’s work in the way of unfolding the poet’s and the composer’s plot.
With all described great qualities of New Zealand production in this most beloved Russian opera, there are few tiny details that could become subjects for the conversation about style, for example the choice of birches for creating the atmosphere in the first episode. In Russia, birch is not an appropriate tree for the garden and could not be associated with nobility’s mansion. Birches had never been described by Pushkin, whose poetry is full of nature elements, by the way. For Russians the birch is strongly associated with the name of another great poet - Esenin, the representative of the beginning of 20th century’s “Villager’s” trend in poetry. The big girls’ choir, doing dishes in Larin’s house was not a very successful find as well. But those details are not of the great importance and can’t be a reason to be less impressed by the performance. New Zealand Opera has done tremendous work and created an extremely successful masterpiece of operatic art.
