opera notebook
some operas I have seen on videoPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin (1879)
libretto by the composer
Finnish National Opera, Helsinki, 2024
- Conductor: Alan Buribayev
- Director & Set Designer: Marco Arturo Marelli
- Onegin: Iurii Samoilov
- Tatiana: Aisté Piliba
- Lensky: Tigran Hakobyan
- Gremin: Matti Turunen
Marco Arturo Marelli's production, revived here by co-directors Charlotta Sevon and Kim Amberla, makes use of a big askew frame and some dreamlike shifts in the action. Iurii Samoilov as Onegin is onstage much of the time when he cannot be present; likewise Aisté Piliba as Tatiana is present at the duel between Onegin and Lensky, though again in an imaginary way. Marelli stages the duel as resulting in Lensky's accidental death after the duellists try to reconcile, and then has the action shift immediately into the ball several years later, as Onegin mimes attempting suicide to the strains of the Polonaise.
Not all of these choices added up for me, but there are many good things about the 2024 Helsinki production. Piliba is magnificent as Tatiana. Matti Turunen is very powerful as Gremin, and played in the way I think best, affecting without being possessive. The orchestra and the singers across the cast do fine work, and the sound is very well-recorded.