Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky): Matropolitan Opera House

Há um bom par de anos, no Met, tive a felicidade de assistir a uma récita de Eugene Onegin, encenada por Robert Carsen, com um elenco absolutamente luxuoso: Hvorostovsky, Fleming e Vargas.

Na presente temporada, a magnífica encenação de Carsen foi retomada, contando com outros intérpretes, não menos brilhantes: Hampson e Mattila.

Um leitor atento, que muito prezo, teve a amabilidade de me enviar este link com a crítica da récita. Claro está, já a havia lido...

«Doubt no longer. On Friday, when the Met brought back Robert Carsen’s beautifully spare 1997 production of “Eugene Onegin,” Ms. Mattila sang her first Tatiana at the house and was a revelation. Onegin remains a good role for the veteran baritone Thomas Hampson, who subtly conveyed the hauteur of the entitled, clueless hero. The fast-rising Polish tenor Piotr Beczala brought his bright, healthy voice and impassioned delivery to the role of Lenski, Onegin’s decent but fatally hotheaded friend, who is engaged to Tatiana’s winsome sister, Olga, here the dusky-toned mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk. And Jiri Belohlavek conducted a performance that deftly balanced urgency and lyrical languor.

But Ms. Mattila is the standout. In her luminously sung performance, she uncannily reveals the turmoil of a young woman who courageously, however recklessly, acts on her feelings. From the opening of the Letter Scene in Act I, when Tatiana is ushered to bed by Filippyevna, the hearty old family nurse, Ms. Mattila was like a hopelessly love-struck adolescent. Fidgeting under the covers, unable to sleep, she got up, twisted herself into a bundle of limbs and sat on the mattress, riveted by Filippyevna’s story of her marriage: an arranged union, naturally. The mezzo-soprano Jane Shaulis (replacing Barbara Dever, who was ill) made a charmingly bossy nurse.

When Tatiana rashly expresses her overwhelming feelings in a letter to Onegin, whom she has just met, Ms. Mattila brings burnished richness and aching expressivity to the fitful and inspired music. Onegin responds in person, thanking Tatiana for her charming candor, but dismissing marriage as too confining an institution for him. Here Mr. Hampson captured Onegin’s patronizing decorum in advising Tatiana to be more cautious about confiding herself to men who may not be so discreet. Here Ms. Mattila was the image of abject humiliation, singing with halting poignancy, looking like a stoop-shouldered, guilty child.

In the final scene, years later, when Onegin re-encounters Tatiana, now married to the older, decent and devoted Prince Gremin (the sturdy bass Sergei Aleksashkin), Mr. Hampson was the embodiment of a young man who realizes too late what a haughty fool he was to have dismissed Tatiana’s feelings as some schoolgirl crush. Filling the phrases with desperation, he sometimes pushed his voice too forcefully. Over all, though, his singing was sensitive, robust and elegant.

In the crushing final scene, Tatiana, honoring her marriage vows, rejects Onegin’s pleas while admitting that her feelings for him remain. They had a brief chance to achieve truly romantic love. She took a risk, he let it slip. “We were so close,” Ms. Mattila sang, with a wistful beauty that will stay with me. »