[Met Performance] CID:310860



Eugene Onegin
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, December 16, 1992

Debut : Sergei Leiferkus




Eugene Onegin (98)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | Konstantin šilovski/Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Eugene Onegin
Sergei Leiferkus [Debut]

Tatiana
Mirella Freni

Lensky
Jerry Hadley

Olga
Birgitta Svendén

Prince Gremin
Nicolai Ghiaurov

Larina
Rosalind Elias

Filippyevna
Judith Christin

Triquet
Anthony Laciura

Captain
John Fiorito

Zaretsky
Kevin Short


Conductor
Seiji Ozawa







Review 1:

Review of Martin Mayer in Opera Magazine

It was the second time in two weeks the Met had triumphed with an east European opera, for the "Yevgeny Onegin" on December 16 had been done at a level that left the case-hardened orchestra standing in the pit and applauding the curtain calls. The heroine of course was Mirella Freni, still capable of convincingly portraying a late-adolescent girl, and singing just gorgeously. Thomas Hampson had been scheduled to sing her Onegin, but he has been having laryngitis problems and cancelled; the Met got the incomparable Sergei Leiferkus to make his house debut as the cover in this role. In sound, musical substance, acting and appearance he was simply an ideal Onegin. Jerry Hadley, cured of whatever it was that ailed him last season, sang a lovely Lensky. Brigitta Svenden was a beauteous Olga, and it was nice to hear somebody who went effortlessly low in that role, but her voice did not blend well with Freni's in the [first act] duo.

Seiji Ozawa, who had made his Met debut in this opera a couple of weeks earlier, conducted eloquently, if sometimes a touch portentously (Triquet's little aria was shamelessly dragged out). He really likes to conduct orchestras and tends to ask his singers to find his rubatos on their own, though to his credit he followed Freni and Leiferkus carefully in their superbly convincing final duet. Ozawa had apparently been tense for the first two performances, but he was relaxed for this one, and it is always a delight to have a major conductor at the house. The only sour note was the dreadfully amateurish and wrongheaded choreography of the ball scene in the third act.



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