User Reviews

Eugene Onegin is one of my favourite Tchaikovsky works, it never fails to touch me and the music is some of Tchaikovsky's most beautiful. I love the 1984 and 1988 productions just as much, but this Met production is a stunning Onegin.

The sets are minimalist, however in a very beautiful way. The costumes are truly beautiful. The production looks simply fantastic in high definition, with great sound, picture quality and video directing. The staging is done intelligently, the first ballroom scene is especially well done as well as the final drawing room duet.

Musically, Eugene Onegin is simply wonderful. The Polanaise and Waltz are played with style and in Lensky's and Gremin's arias you can feel the pathos. The Letter scene is riveting too. All of this is helped by the outstanding conducting of Valery Gergiev, not only does he clearly feel the music in his bones but he is very interesting to watch.

Renee Fleming is a lovely Tatiana and as Onegin Dmitri Hvorostovsky is wonderfully arrogant, charismatic and detached. Ramon Vargas is also wonderful in the role of the impassioned Lensky, his act 2 aria brought tears to my eyes as it should do. Olga is very attractively performed, and Gremin is excellent, deservedly bringing the house down with his expressive aria in act 3.

All in all, if Tchaikovsky saw this production of his operatic masterpiece he would be proud. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Opera on film does not get much better than this. Conductor Valery Gergiev is a master of this repertoire and he extracts thrilling performances from both orchestra and cast. Renée Fleming is very moving during Tatiana's letter song although this is an almost unbearable scene to watch. When I see this opera live I want to jump out of my seat and shout "Don't write it, Tatiana" and "No, don't post it". Renée Fleming's acting, as opposed to singing, ability is at its best in the scene immediately after this when she visibly crumbles at Onegin's arrogant response to the letter. Dmitry Hvorostovky is arrogance personified as Onegin. I also enjoyed the authentically Russian Olga of the throaty mezzo Elena Zaremba. The versatile Tenor Ramón Vargos is her naïve lover Lenski. As Prince Gremin, Segei Alexashkin's wistful aria on love in old age gets a wild response from the audience.

The production is beautifully minimalist using a bare stage, covered in autumn leaves for the first scene. There are few props apart from a few chairs for the ballroom scenes. Yet the production successfully evokes the contrast between rural Russian life, with Tchaikovsky using folksy themes, and the grandeur of St Petersburg. This is a theme that many of us perhaps know from Chekov's plays although Tchaikovsky based this opera on a verse novel by Pushkin.

There are many intelligent touches from stage director Peter McClintock.. I liked the elision between the duel scene and the St Petersburg ball, so that Onegin goes straight from killing his friend, Lenski in a duel to the ball several years later. The most interesting idea, though, is to have Tatiana's letter passing backwards and forwards between her and Onegin. During the overture we see a sadder and wiser Onegin reading Tatiana's letter and regretting what could have been. During the opera, she sends him the letter but he gives it back to her with a brisk "learn to control yourself". Later, when she is Princess Gremin we see her rereading her letter before Onegin bursts in to declare his love for her. Finally, and this stretches one's credulity slightly, she leaves the letter on the chair as she walks out on him.So the opera ends as it begins with Onegin reading the letter. And in choosing her elderly husband over her young lover, Tatiana echoes the song of the old ladies in the opening scene: that heaven sends us habits in place of happiness.

I mostly agree with the other reviewers; this was the best experience I have ever had with opera on TV, and nearly so with opera in person. But my wife assures me, and my Russian is almost good enough to confirm, that the translation was deficient, and that Lenski was miscast. He should not be a figure of fun, but nearly Onegin's equal; Vargas, nonetheless, did an excellent job in the wrong role. And finally I disagree that not having a set was appropriate (think of Zefereli's Met productions), though at least we were left with some furniture and fallen leaves.

Eugene Onegin is among the most popular Russian operas and I really enjoyed this production. Sets and costumes are beautiful and they give a feeling of autumn that fits the opera. Renee Fleming I mostly know as Desdemona and Violetta .Here as Tatyana she gives us both naive and romantic young Tatyana and in Act 3 when Tatyana is married,great maturity. Dmitri Hvorostovsky is truly great as Onegin in both his acting as a bored and arrogant young aristocrat and in the big final duet with Tatyana and in his voice. Ramon Vargas as Lensky did a truly great job with the big aria Lensky sings .I knew him as Alfredo and Rodolfo,and now as Lensky he managed to get me emotional. The rest of the cast also does an amazing job. Overall,amazing Eugene Onegin.10/10.