I said I would do this, so I will. I must say, however, that I do not have the discerning eyes and ears of a successful theater critic, so what I say here is simply my opinion of the performance.
The opera Eugene Onegin centers around the encounter between the country girl Tatyana Larina, and the bored city sophisticate Eugene Onegin. Tatyana, a shy quiet seventeen-year-old who lives in the world of her romantic novels, falls for the handsome stranger Onegin and writes him a love letter. Unfortunately for her, Onegin is very self-centered doesn't let her down easy. His selfish behavior and attitude lead to even more trouble for Tatyana and especially for him, finally coming to a head when he himself falls for Tatyana six years later. By then she has been married an aristocratic older man who loves her to insanity. Onegin tries to get Tatyana to run away with him, but she tells him that while she still loves him, she cannot and will not abandon her husband and her duties. She leaves Onegin to his despair as the curtain falls.
I have seen women in the role of Tatyana before, but Anna Netrebko was the first soprano who actually looked like she was seventeen. She also really brought out Tatyana's shyness and love of fantasy really well. I had never seen a production of Eugene Onegin that had Tatyana getting sensory overload at her own birthday party.
In the Letter Scene Tatyana writes her letter to Onegin. Netrebko's best performance was in this scene. The shy girl who was pensively reading her novels in the first scene was now flushed with a nervous teenage passion for Onegin. She kept pausing frequently, wondering if she should continue writing or call it off. She thrashed, she rolled on the floor, she went through several sheets of paper before she was satisfied with what she had.
Mariusz Kwieciens very new Onegin for me. I'm more used to the indifferent aloofness that I saw in Dima's and Hyung Yun's portrayals of Onegin. Kwiecien's interpretation was more of the smooth-talking bad boy variety (probably having something to do with his numerous portrayals of the title role in Don Giovanni). Perhaps his best scenes were at the end of Act 1 and all of Act 3. In his aria in Act 1, Kwiecien strutted around snagging an apple in the process. He was very stiff in that scene, but that was pretty much the point. What I loved best was just how he brought out Onegin's treating Tatyana like a five-year-old, right down to the chin chuck as he kissed her.
His Act 3 performance was also a major highlight. When I saw either Dima or Hyung Yun do the role, they just stood brooding while the Polonaise played. Although in those cases, it had to do with the fact that both those productions fused Acts 2 and 3 together.
Kwiecien came onstage during the Polonaise and he was piling on the champagne. When he sings his arietta at the end of the scene, he was thrashing on the floor just like Tatyana had been doing in her Letter Scene, but this time alcohol was involved, so it looked way more careless and wobbly than it did passionate. This same disordered way of moving was also present in the final scene with Tatyana.
Piotr Beczala as Vladimir Lensky? (SQUEE!) I had only seen one of his more naive romantic roles and that was Des Grieux in Massenet's Manon. Beczala brought out the romantic naivete of the young poet who also has an unfortunate little habit of jumping to conclusions without a bungee cord. No where was this more evident than in Act 2, first when he assumes that Olga no longer loves him, and then in the Duel Scene when he laments his actions almost as if he knows he's going to die. And both he and Onegin are too proud to call the duel off.
The other character I'd like to speak of is Gremin. I forget the name of the bass who sang him, but his portrayal was something else. the character was aged down in this production to around forty-something instead of sixty-something. This was the first time I had even seen Gremin actually sing part of his aria to Tatyana. He's not the exotic charmer that Onegin is, but he honest and kind, and that I think is what keeps Tatyana from leaving him at the end of the opera. I think the bass brought out that kindness and honesty very well.
There was only one weak point in the opera and that was the Peasants' Dance. I don't get it; instead of the traditional circle dances, they had the dance rendered as four guys chasing one girl. Eh? Do you care to explain that Deborah Warner? It did not fit at all. Where did you even get the idea in the first place? It's supposed to a rustic harvest dance, not a Frat-Boys-Harassing-A-Girl moment!
I hope that the Met does this again. And can they please come up with something traditional for the Peasant's Dance?
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