What lies at the heart of the opera Eugene Onegin is the title character's lack of self knowledge. His tragedy that he is unable to fathom the emptiness that lies beneath his world weary cynicism and false sophistication. In the opening act, Onegin is the big city visitor from St. Petersburg who feels out of place in the countryside and bored in the company of the easygoing Larin family and their neighbors. Throughout the first act, his snobbery is set against Tatiana's warmhearted naïveté which he is unable to appreciate and can only look down upon. In the second act, he is unable to see how childish is his behavior in inciting his friend Lenski to a fatal duel. The tension builds as the audience waits for the moment in the final act when Onegin's pretensions are finally stripped away and he is at last faced with the total futility of his life. The climax arrives when Tatiania rejects Onegin's letter in the same way he had once rejected hers.
Tchaikovsky, originally reluctant to adapt Pushkin's work, soon saw the opera as an opportunity to brilliantly orchestrate the conflicts existing among the characters and within Onegin himself. As the program notes:
"The letter scene, Tatiania's nocturnal outburst in which we see her gradually transformed from hesitant young girl to headstrong woman, is the dramatic, emotional, and musical crucible of the entire score, and Tchaikovsky's use of highly expressive motifs throughout the opera builds on it... Onegin's futile declaration in Act III reproduces themes from Tatiania's impetuous midnight reverie, with even more forceful results.
"Affective memories of that crucial scene emerge elsewhere too... So, just as the first act ends with Tatiania, Lenski dominates the final scene of the second act, with a farewell that is filled with motifs from Tatiania's letter scene."
Last evening's performance of Eugene Onegin was an almost perfect realization of Tchaikovsky's vision. Valery Gergiev is perhaps the best living conductor of the Russian repertoire, and he brought the score vividly to life. Anna Trebetko, as Tatiania, was wonderful throughout, most especially in the difficult second scene of the first act when alone on stage she undergoes her metamorphosis. Mariusz Kwiecien handled the title role masterfully and was most effective in his aria rejecting Tatiania's love at the close of the first act. Piotr Beczala, as Lenski, gave an excellent performance of the crucial aria immediately preceding the duel at the end of the second act.
This was a new production. Its architect, Deborah Warner, showed a great deal of insight in an interview contained within the program in relating the opera's characters to those found in the plays of Chekhov (who was actually a friend of the composer and an admirer of Onegin; at one point the two even discussed collaborating on an opera). According to Ms.Warner:
"What matters most to me here is the pursuit of truth. Onegin is on a par with Chekhov. It is absolutely the same territory. You want to believe these people are living and breathing and feeling utterly honestly, truthfully."
Ms. Warner showed her deep understanding of Tchaikovsky's intentions by designing a handsome set that did full justice to his work. This was the type of grand production the Met successfully staged so often in the past, before it sought to become "relevant," and would be best advised to put on more frequently in the future.
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