Eugene Onegin - Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 27 September 2008 Who is Eugene Onegin all about? Onegin or Tatyana? That's the question usually asked. Director Achim Freyer seems to think it's all about himself. Ignoring the demands of the story and the music, he's simply slotted his new Berlin Staatsoper production into his familiar style of puppety characters, painterly sets and disengaged movement. This abnormal level of stylisation and artificiality may enhance a Zauberflote, but it's a treatment that reveals little about the down-to-earth and richly characterised Eugene Onegin. Indeed if you watched the whole thing with your fingers in your ears, you'd be hard pressed to guess what opera was in front of you. Freyer has the whole cast on the steeply-raked stage most of the time, made-up like an Insane Clown Posse vid, shuffling up and down and across in a series of extended painful-looking zombie movements, a sort of barking mad dance. Chairs are wielded, waved, sometimes even sat on, a substitute for any human contact. The whole extended sequence is repeated four and a half times over the three hours - yes, there's a reason why all the production photos seem to look the same. (Once I twigged this, three reps in, I felt enormously clever - until I realised it had taken me two hours to grasp it). The occasional brief respites, like the hundreds of red ping pong balls that cascade down the stage as Onegin rejects Tatyana, are too crudely executed to provoke anything except embarrassed giggles. Now to be fair, that's a perspective that could be validly drawn from Onegin. But it's far from the only one. And it certainly doesn't bear non-stop exploration to the exclusion of everything else in the opera. Tchaikowsky allows his characters thoughts and actions, with consequences, but Freyer's too busy taking three hours to make one simple point to investigate anything else. As the second act heckler (incidentally young and normal-looking) shouted, "Freyer is boring". Daniel Barenboim's reading was predictably muscular and confident, fortuitously matched to the production. He raced brusquely through the crowd scenes as if he'd rather leave them out altogether, and he certainly left the chorus behind at a few points. For the soloists he was attentive and sympathetic, moulding the orchestra around them, creating the characterisations that the production concept denied. Only the dramatically lingering finale had the least hint of sentimentality. He sang in a less (technically) 'open' way than he had in Don Carlo at Covent Garden. But the upside was a voice that sounded totally under his control, with never a hint of strain or cracking. The highest notes pushed him to his limits, but again it was controlled, with just the occasional dip off pitch. On stage for the whole time, often in weird contorted poses, he must have been in some physical discomfort (if not real pain) by the end, but this never found its way into his singing. Rene Pape's Gremin was as dignified as his clown makeup allowed him to be, though the chill of the production seemed to have worked its way into his bones. Fine singing, but missing that final degree of commitment. Anna Samuil was altogether too detached to be engaging, and brought little sense of Tatyana's emotional development to the final act. Margarita Nekrasova, a sturdy and imposing Nurse, was the most impressive amongst the smaller roles and Stephan Rügamer's Triquet was nicely sung. The full official photo gallery is here, there are some more press pictures here, and some more curtain call shots below - captioned because you'll need it.....
production photos: Monika Rittershaus; curtain call photos: intermezzo.typepad.comThere's a bargain-basement look (what funding crisis?)to the bare stage, sheeted in white for the first two acts, whipped away to reveal glossy black for the last. The costumes were my favourite part of the design concept - anonymous black garments rolled in whitewash that suggest uniformity but also snow and dusty decay.
Of course this all means that the action doesn't fit the situation, but that's Freyer's point. Life is a series of endlessly repeating loops, without meaning; everything is governed by fate.
This production isn't half as clever or beautiful as it thinks it is, just rather silly. But in an honest, childlike way, not a manipulative or irritating one. And its chilly detachment does at least avoid the gasping and clutching and cloying sentimentality of many conventional interpretations. In short, it gives the music room to breathe.
Rolando Villazón was someone else who positively benefited from the production. The constrained movement encouraged rather anonymous vocalising from many in the cast. Rolando's Lensky moved like a zombie but he sounded like a living, breathing person, full of fire and passion, and his physical stillness focussed and intensified his energy.
If he wasn't already a star, a performance like this would make him one - was that why Freyer placed him centre stage, at the heart of the action? - if there's one character Onegin is not 'about', it's Lensky, after all. Villazón fans could hardly complain about either the quality or the quantity of Rolando on show.
Beside these two, the other singers largely faded into the background. Roman Trekel sang Onegin competently enough, but if you didn't know the opera was titled Eugene Onegin, you'd never guess from his retiring performance.
At the end, the boos for Freyer at the end predictably drowned out the applause. The earlier heckler wasn't bored enough to leave - he hung around to add his voice to the masses. It was touching to see both Rolando Villazón and Daniel Barenboim grasp the elderly director's arm in a gesture of solidarity. But I predict with confidence that this production won't be joining Berlin's repertory staples.
Rolando Villazón and Anna Samuil:
Rolando Villazón, Maria Gortsevkaya (Olga) and Margarita Nekrasova:
Rolando Villazón:
Rene Pape and Roman Trekel:
Rene Pape:
Rolando Villazón and Daniel Barenboim - comparing injuries?:
