Night of the Juggalo Zombies - Rolando Villazon in new Berlin Eugene Onegin

Eugene Onegin - Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 27 September 2008

 
production photos: Monika Rittershaus; curtain call photos: intermezzo.typepad.com

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.

There'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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..... 

 

 

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?:

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Henry holland]

Yikes, Freyer is doing the upcoming Los Angeles "Ring" cycle. *sigh* I will say, though, that his "Moses und Aron" at the City Opera that I saw in the early 90's blew me away, one of the best opera productions I've ever seen.

[catherine(la parisienne)]

Magnifique article, très bien documenté, d'une "inquiétante" production.
Dommage que de très grands artistes perdent leur énergie et leur talent dans de telles mascarades !
Une question : les metteurs en scène réfléchissent-ils parfois au prix que paient les spectateurs pour voir de si affligeants spectacles ?
Catherine

[JSU]

No pics of the perp (Freyer)?

[inter mezzo]

@Henry - I think the same production - and I mean the *exact* same production - might work much better for the Ring than it did here. (Who knows, perhaps that's what he's got planned for you lucky la-ers)

@JSU - Freyer is the kindly-looking elderly gent clutching Barenboim's hand in the last of the small pics. That's the best shot I could get - my camera didn't seem to like him.....

[David]

The fact that the 'young and normal' looking heckler shouted out... so what? It just proves that he is wholly naive and inexperienced - and frankly, a lout. All the ignorance and certainty of youth ;)

Now older watchers like me were able to link this production to a European tradition of alternative theatre and performance art and find it ... spellbinding, mesmeric, extraordinary, even a revelation.

I guess an MTV generation - even when it comes to opera - will find that it really cannot still, slow down, focus and concentrate. Their loss.

[Maguy]

So many links occur to one's mind when reading your precise article . What is striking to notice is that you( I mean the lucky ones who attended that performance) all agree on the immense quality of the music ,which seems to have gained a lot from this new production , better (if I may say so ) than in the 'romantic' tradition . And stillness , miming , is truer to life than too much gesticulation . Mime Marceau knew all about the 'noise' of silent gesture , more effective than lots of words . Having seen' normal' Eugene Oneguin , I am looking forward to seeing this one ! Many thanks, Intermezzo!

[deb]

I saw it on the second last performance (I think) as was utterly blown away - while I wouldn't recomend it as a first Onegin (the guy who booed at the end of act 1 would probably not recommend it as an Onegin at all...) I thought it was an astonishing achievement. Yes they go through 4 cycles of very slow & exaggerated movements but not one reviewer I have read mentions the fact that they are carefully chosen movements, each of which eventually finds its own context at least once. For example when Villazon lies down at the front of stage, makes clutching motions with his fist drawn down from his chin then turns to his side holding his heart, then dropping his hand to the floor (five times, granted) it was the third cycle that it fell into place. And when you realise during the duel scene that Trekel and Villazon are actually pistols and not teapots for the 'Vragi' bit...And Sumuil's wonderful removing of her veil...and so on. Mabe I'm falling folly of the old 'play a soundtrack to a moving image'-emphasis trick, but is that not beautiful thing in itself anyway? the lighting was spectacular too, I loved the costumes and the actual stage, but I thought the concept was simply incredible.
Furhermore, I was trying to work out how the hell the singers managed to memorise everything and hit their beats - did they all learn the entire opera? Particularly Villazon & Samuil who were (comparitively) hare-ing it across the stage (Trekel did pretty much nothing accept look like a teapot stage left).
To finish (my slight rant) - I do not understand people who only want to see opera staged for realism in perfect period - you can count on so many things with an opera - for starters the tenor will sing tenor,soprano, soprano (i.e. no cross casting), all (most) of the songs will be presented in the correct order, and sung to a certain level, the score itself is an unshakable core - is this not a perfect structure to align with abstract? Bravo Achim Freyer - I will give teeth for tickets to his ring cycle.
btw I thought the singing was gorgeous, and that Villazon and Sumuil were both standout performances and Maestro Barenboim conducted the s**t out of the score, though I prefer Maestro Gergiev :)

[maguy]

Deb,like you I felt amazed by the slow motion gestures going along with the singing and lyrics and not a single motion was without meaning or interaction. I wish I could see the opera again to make all the links which are missing in my memory of the 12th oct performance.I was mesmerised by the ball scene actII because Barenboïm tempo made the orchestra sound like never heard before,similar to that tragic procession invading the back stage,where both halloween and Guernica hints could be seen.Death was already on stage .The orchestra played this score as if new to me.
This production,this Freyer's vision of the
psychological truth behind Pouchkin's words seems more real to me than the traditional Eugene Oneguine I saw before .Yes, the singing was very good,for all of them.I liked the choice of the mezzo's voice
matching so well with her sister's at the opening scene (Olga,diguised as the eternal ballerina was Maria Gorstevkaya ),Tatiana-Anna Samuil with Rolando Villazon Lensky were so good.Right at the curtain opening someone shouted something rude for
Freyer's production ,I really think that it is on the contrary pure 'gold',without cheating with music ,words,costumes and all the dust of the past.