Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]

Additional Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007] Information

What Customers Say About Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Fleming, Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Gergiev, Carsen [Metropolitan Opera 2007]:

A splendid production of a great work. But buy it elsewhere; my copy skips tracks.

This is an excellent production and recording. I purchased it after seeing the live performance of the same production with an also excellent but different cast. The staging is spare but evocative and effective, and the performances, especially by Renee Fleming are truly memorable. One of the best opera DVD's I've seen.

I purchased this production to learn the opera prior to a family member performing the title role in an opera studio production. I found it easy to follow and the performance itself excellent. Renee Fleming is a favorite and she is excellent in this role.

I have loved this opera for years.I have four productions of it on DVD and nine on CD and LP (including one in English with Thomas Hampson and Kiri Te Kanawa) and I can say that the final act of this production is by far the most thrilling of them all,these two singers do not need any stage props to make it work, their superb voices, acting abilities and stage presence do it all.BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVISSIMI.

However, Fleming is superb in the last scene of the opera. I find his Russian pronounciation not good, and his Lenski aria is too full of Italianate rubato and sentimentality. Tatyana finds her emotional turmoil inexplicable until she discovers that she is in love (Pouring water on herself is a bit extreme, particularly for a very young Russian country girl). I gave this version of Onegin 4 stars because, in spite of the outstanding performance by Dmitry Hvorostovsky and Valery Gergiev, one that thoroughly revealed the greatness of Tchaikovsky's score, the rest of the cast, in my opinion, did not fully reach that level of perfection. Sergei Aleksashkin's version of his aria is the best I have heard. Olga is excellent, but she and Vargas do not make a credible couple.

No one else comes close to that level of performance.

That scene is unforgettable.

It, by the way, is beautifully and expressively played by the cello soloist in the introduction to the duel scene.

Renee Fleming has a gorgeous voice, her pitch is perfect but at moments in the first act she acts too much as a grown-up woman rather than as a sixteen-year-old Tatyana.

In my opinion, that aria is one of the most beautiful and profound in the repertoire.

It takes one's breath away.

Fleming and Hvorostovsky not only sing brilliantly, they succeed in making one forget that this is a stage and not real life, they are totally identified with their characters.

Other artists in this recording who do total justice to their role are Larisa Shevchenko ("nyanya") and Sergei Aleksashkin (Prince Gremin).Shevchenko sings beautifully, has a warm personality, and is a kind and devoted nyanya.

The tempo is excellent, his voice is rich and of accurate pitch, and his delivery soberly conveys nobility of sentiment.