nineveh_uk

There is a lot of free opera around just now. I decided that after all I was too tired for the Met's Tristan and Isolde stream, but intend to enjoy some Wagner through finally watching all of Opera North's amazing concert Ring Cycle.

But last night was easier fare, something offering the combination of tunes, character and plot that is what I need in all my favourite operas, namely the Met's Eugene Onegin with Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. And very enjoyable it was too. The box-like set was unable to resist the lure, this being a Russian setting, of a few birch trees, although there was a disappointing lack of dancing. The different dances are important, damn it! I've only seen Onegin live once plus the ballet (thanks, lurgy), but I love the music and am the sort of sap who loves the story, but also finds it funny. I really liked Hvorostovsky as Onegin - yes, he's a complete tosser, but also a man who has trapped himself, he deserves what he gets in the end, but is also sympathetic. It's partly the smile, an austere face that can suddenly light up and look human.

A problem for opera, especially filmed, is that inevitably the leads don't look the age of the characters. I would love a TV series in which all the characters are cast their age. In the Fiennes film, Liv Tyler is nearly young enough for Tatiana, but I feel too statuesque to look 17*, and Fiennes is way too old. It makes so much more sense when all the protagonists in the first half are in their teens/early 20s. And I like to think that Tatiana will have some happy years with Gremin who will then drop dead of a heart attack and leave her a wealthy widow who marries someone her own age, not Onegin (once she has the chance, she thinks "No").

It was in short an excellent thing to watch to focus on something that required concentration and not worrying about current events, though it did rather mean that I put the phone down on both antisoppist and my Mum in order to finish before the time ran out.

Subsequently, I found myself thinking of an old LJ/DW post Opera in the Nexus. Clearly Eugene Onegin fits right in.

Barrayar: Absolutely no alterations needed! This is the perfect Barrayaran opera, all about honour and love, and of course Russian. The only difference from the original is the title - it is called Tatiana, and thus becomes about a girl from an obscure Vor family on the South Continent who falls foolishly in love, albeit is saved from herself by Vor traditions of honour that Onegin adheres to if nothing else, but grows into an ideal Vor wife, protecting the genome through her fidelity to her husband.

Beta Colony: The entire audience is baffled as to why everyone doesn't just wear the right earrings and save a lot of bother.

Have some clips.

Moscow State Symphony Orchestra doing the waltz (music only, but fabulous).

The Bolshoi doing the polonaise old-school.

Two from the Met Opera production. Onegin's Act 1, or "what a tosser", aria (sorry about the French subtitles):



Final scene:



*She would have been a wonderful Georgiana Darcy, though.