TCHAIKOVSKY: Eugen Onegin (PAL)

Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840- 1893)
Eugene Onegin
Lyrical Scenes in three acts after Alexander Pushkin

Maria Gavrilova, Vladimir Redkin, Nikolay Baskov,
Aik Martirosyan
Orchestra and Chorus of the Bolshoi Theatre,
Stanislav Lykov (Chorus Master), Mark Ermler

Stage Director: Boris Pokrovsky,
Choreography: Yuri Papko

Picture Format: 4:3
Sound Format: PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5:1, DTS 5:1
Running Time: 157 mins
Region Code: 0 WW
Booklet Languages: GB, F, D
Subtitles: GB, F, D, SP, IT
Recording Date: 18th October 2000

Cat. No.: DV-OPEON

TDK presents a lavish and naturalistic staging of Eugene Onegin by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky performed in Moscow, the city where the work had its world premiere on 29 March 1879. In their October 2000 production, the Bolshoi not only adopted a traditional music theatre approach, they also successfully revived a previous and popular production premiered in 1944.

A feast of music is spread before the audience for their pure enjoyment. The gifted singers are so secure in their command of the Russian idiom that the music's inner content, its lyrismo, is constantly at the fore. Vladimir Redkin with his profound, glowing baritone takes the title-role, and Maria Gavrilova sings Tatyana, her soprano gleaming at the top, is almost unequalled for warmth and radiance. This Eugene Onegin is a sumptuously arrayed feast of singing. But it is also a feast of good theatre, because it concentrates on the most important element of the tale it tells; namely the tragedy of the human soul and its suffering.

The setting and costumes are naturalistic and the drama develops its intensity primarily from the music and the text. The circumstances are with straightforward clarity. Eugene Onegin is an opera in "lyric scenes" as it is subtitled. The tone of the work is "lyrical", emotionally alert; conflicts are expressed by the intense singing and finely judged gestures of the performers alone.