| (...)Sunday evening's production of Tchaikovsky's “Evgeni Onegin” at the Garde Arts
Center(.......)marked a rite of passage.
The company made the leap to the big stage last season, but it was the very
choice of “Onegin” — let alone Sunday's often thrilling performance — that
demonstrated Lyric is now a musical force in this community, with artistic
maturity and commitment to presenting the best in music.
The company is built around Polish-trained artistic director and conductor
Adrian Sylveen Mackiewicz and Lithuanian soprano Jurate Svedaite, who sings most
of the lead roles. They brought to Sunday's performance a fluency in both the
Russian language and in Tchaikovsky's taxing score. One of the company's assets
is that the orchestra is Mackiewicz's New Britain-based Connecticut Virtuosi
Chamber Orchestra, not a pick-up contract ensemble.
“Onegin” is a far cry from Italian opera (though it bears some uncanny
resemblance to Verdi's “La Traviata”). It does not stop for the standard
operatic set pieces of arias, duets, and quartets; its emotional story rides a
narrative of orchestral score, and the voices and musicians breathe the same
air. Sunday's performance, though far from note-perfect, was driven by
Mackiewicz's firm grasp of the score and by fine performances by two principals,
soprano Svedaite and Russian baritone Maksim Ivanov as Onegin.
Based on Pushkin's poem, it is the story of the dreamy small town girl Tatiana
who is smitten by the jaded sophisticate Onegin when he is introduced to her
family by her sister Olga's fiancé, Lensky. Tatiana writes an impassioned love
letter to Onegin, who dismisses her with a snobbish lecture about her naïveté.
In a party that follows, Onegin relieves his boredom by flirting with Olga to
irritate his friend. Lensky becomes enraged and challenges Onegin to a duel, and
Lensky is killed in the duel.
Six years pass, and Onegin attends a soiree in St. Petersburg, where he is
stunned to see Tatiana, now married to a nobleman. Overcome with the anguish of
lost love to compound his dissolute life, Onegin meets with Tatiana and pledges
his love to her. Tatiana too breaks down, confesses her love for him never died,
but she says it is all too late and leaves him shattered.
Tchaikovsky spends little time on character development, knowing that his
audience was well-versed in the poem by Pushkin, the Shakespeare of the Russia
(himself killed in a duel). Instead, the composer describes pure emotion with
his subtle and powerful score.
Performed with black-box sets and fine costuming, Sunday's “Onegin” was carried
by a well-paced reading by conductor Mackiewicz(..... )the 23-piece orchestra
pulled off oversize moments, written for a far larger orchestra, in the drama of
Tatiana's letter scene, the duel scene and the well-paced finale.
Svedaite was a fine Tatiana (if a bit too old to pull off the casting in the
small theater). Her letter scene, one of the great soprano tours de force in all
opera, was unhurried and sung with knowing, fluid dynamics. The effect was
riveting as she travelled its emotional landscape, and she had the same vocal
and emotional sensitivity in the final scene.
You couldn't have asked for a better Onegin than Ivanov. Though used primarily
as Tatiana's dramatic foil, he had a powerful presence and hall-filling
baritone. Though given few solo opportunities by Tchaikovsky, he made the most
of his Act 3 “Uzhel ta samaja Tatiana.”
The chorus performance was the best yet by this company, and several of the
supporting cast members were excellent, including mezzo Margaret Tyler, as
Tatiana's nurse Filippyevna, and bass Laurentiu Rotaru, a company regular, as
the nobleman Gremin.
Lyric's was the first performance ever in Connecticut of this masterpiece in its
original language. This young company has proven it has much to offer local
music lovers.
|
