Eugene Onegin is a difficult work to perform and to record; for these ''lyrical scenes'' demand singers who can get away from the stereotypes Tchaikovsky feared and really enter into an intimate, private style of performance. Yet the opera's quality and popularity will always attract great singers, and opera houses and record companies will naturally want to secure top names for their productions. The question is tackled honourably here, but not resolved.
Mirella Freni's Tatyana illustrates the problem. She is a singer whose career has given opera-goers some of their most memorable experiences, both in the days when she was such an enchanting Zerlina and Susanna, and later when she sang with more expansive style and voice a repertory that included Desdemona and Aida. It is ironic that the latter role was one instanced by Tchaikovsky as belonging to the kind of opera he wished to avoid. What Freni does is sensitive, intelligent and often touching. She can still sound vulnerable—as Tatyana must—and she can convey the sense of anxiety and shyness which are so central to the character. Yet her voice is not now so immediate in its quality, and she has to work for the effects she clearly perceives as apt to her very sympathetic interpretation. In the Letter scene (where she is sometimes obscured by the orchestra, to the detriment of her words) she conveys much of Tatyana's impulsiveness, her full heart, her wonder; but splendidly as she uses her voice, I could not help wishing she had made the records sooner, before her voice which is still in magnificent condition—had grown as it has.
Thomas Allen responds to her. His voice is naturally warmer than all that is implied by so much of Onegin's music, and so is his stage persona; but he makes constructive use of this in the scene after Tatyana has written her rash letter. The text, and for that matter the music make provision for Onegin to seem powerfuliy drawn to Tatyana from the first, and it is the more ironic when his later realization of love for Tatyana is seen against a background of a certain kindness, not merely disdain, in this scene, coupled with a latent attraction to her. He handles the duel scene well, with a shadow over his voice as Onegin has to go forward with an encounter he has not sought and whose outcome destroys him as slowly as it destroys Lensky swiftly. Neil Shicoff sings Lensky with a light voice that is a little lacking in character or range, and that is affected with a tight vibrato; but he too knows how the music should go, and has clearly thought about the part. It is a nice touch to make his first aria to Olga rather exaggerated in its protestatioas; Lensky is a poet, not a very good one, and his attitudes takc up extreme emotions perhaps as part of his self-conscious reactions, which in turn leads him to the absurdity of the fatal challenge. He and Olga—sung rather too grandly but quite appealingly by Anne Sofie van Otter—manage to suggest that their emotions come from lighter hearts than those of Tatyana and Onegin. Shicoff sings the famous aria before the duel agreeably, and not too extravagantly, but there is a lyrical quality not completely found, and he is really at his best at such moments as the horror of his realization that he has caused a quarrel in Mme Larina's house, a house that has given him shelter and, he believes, a bride.
Of the other characters, Paata Burchuladze sounds a little young and confident for Prince Gremin and Ruthild Engert under-characterizes Filippyevna; there is, though, a charming vignette of M Triquet from Michel Senechal.
James Levine draws fine playing from the Staatskapelle Dresden, though he seems to find the opera more conventional than it is. There is a sharper contrast to be found between the homely bounce of the Waltz and the stately St Petersburg Polonaise, between the warmly passionate music of the Letter scene and the grimly passionate duel, between the earthy peasants singing at their work and the Larin household who welcome them. The Letter scene is not really helped by some exaggerations, such as the sentimental drawing out of the Andante (about ten minutes into band 10 of disc 1). The recording is outstandingly intelligent, apart from the misjudgement in the Letter scene already mentioned. The textures are clear, the balance lucid and there is a sensitive differentiation between room, hall and open space. It was skilful to make so much of the Onegin/Lensky duet before their duel, when they sing in canon but as if across the gap in their sundered friendship.
Those who own the Solti/Decca set, which first came out in 1975 and was transferred to CD in 1987, will probably not feel they need revise their loyalties. Solti, too, was apt to go for the orchestral richness at the expense of the dramatic subtlety; and though he had some excellent singers—Stuart Burrows's Lensky was to be treasured—some of the others could also sound too grand. The new set includes the same translation as that.used by Decca (there are a few minor deviations from the full score), with English, French and German translations, there are essays by Michael Stegemann, Andre Lischke, Pierluigi Petrobelli and the present reviewer.'