[Met Performance] CID:251200



Eugene Onegin
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, October 29, 1977 Matinee





Eugene Onegin (42)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | Konstantin šilovski/Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Eugene Onegin
Lenus Carlson

Tatiana
Teresa Zylis-Gara

Lensky
Nicolai Gedda

Olga
Isola Jones

Prince Gremin
Martti Talvela

Larina
Jean Kraft

Filippyevna
Batyah Godfrey Ben-David

Triquet
Andrea Velis

Captain
Richard Best

Zaretsky
Andrij Dobriansky


Conductor
James Levine







Review 1:

Review of Joseph Horowitz in The New York Times

Onegin Sung By Substitute

There was a good deal of groaning at the Metropolitan Opera House Saturday afternoon when Osie Hawkins announced that Sherrill Milnes would not be singing the title role in "Eugene Onegin" because he would be taking over Monday's "Rigoletto" from the indisposed Cornell MacNeil. As it turned out the groaning was entirely unnecessary - Lenus Carlson, the young baritone who substituted for Mr. Milnes, turned in a marvelous performance.

A tall, handsome man with an ample, easily produced voice, Mr. Carlson sang well and looked splendid, and his understanding of the Tchaikovsky opera evidently runs deep. With its shifting mixture of indolence and dark passion, Onegin is a difficult role to bring off, but Mr. Carlson grasped it at the core.

It was mostly Mr. Carlson's doing that the performance built in intensity to the closing duet, rather than petering out after the second act, as this particular opera is prone to. Without over-dramatizing the change, he harrowingly disclosed Onegin's suffering as it gradually broke through an equally well-drawn veneer of worldly indifference.

As Tatyana, Teresa Zylis-Gara was especially moving in her final scene, when she told Onegin she still loved him. But the outstanding performance came from the veteran tenor Nicolai Gedda, whose portrait of Lenski, with its wealth of vocal and dramatic detail, was riveting at every point - the purity and flexibility of his head voice, and the selfless artistry with which it was employed, were beyond praise.

Martti Talvela, as Gremin, did not command the opulent legato his aria ideally asks for. James Levine was the conductor.



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