WE GOT WHAT WE VOTED FOR!

Melanie Ashkar, Jeremy Moore, Milica Nikcevic, Noelle Currie, Eric Alexieff, and Megan Nielson

We are happy knowing that we were among those fans of Utopia Opera who voted for Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. For those of you readers who don't know, Utopia Opera is unique in producing their season by audience vote. This is Utopia Opera's sixth season and it has been a glorious one with the final entry giving us a unique up front and personal view of a long-cherished opera which premiered in Moscow in 1879.

We love this opera because it gives us a glimpse of a highly structured society, one from long ago (1820) and far away (Russia). Nonetheless, we are seeing human nature as it is and always has been--just constrained by the mores of that time and place. We all can recall the naivete with which we approached our first love. We all know people whose pride gets in the way of self-fulfillment. We all have broken off friendships for trivial reasons.  We have all known the pain of jealousy when our beloved has put someone else ahead of us.

But this is not a "whatever" society; this is a society in which "honor" is taken seriously and revenge is serious and often fatal.. "Feeling pissy" and "walking away" are modern inventions. Tatiana falls hard for her sister's fiance's friend. Onegin is a city slicker and she is a country mouse. She overcomes her shame and shyness and bares her soul in a letter to him. He gives her a "Dutch uncle" speech in response.  Not brutal but honest.

At her name-day party, the eponymous Onegin flirts with sister Olga.  Her fiance Lensky takes offense and challenges Onegin to a duel.  Lensky is shot and dies.  Onegin lives an empty sad life for a few years until he runs into Tatiana once more. She is now wed to the elderly Prince Gremin and rejects Onegin whom she still loves.  How old-fashioned to put honor ahead of love!

Of course, Alexander Pushkin's verse novel offers a great deal more elaboration but we will concern ourself with the opera as it is performed. As testament to the power of the story we offer our personal experience of fretting over what happens to poor Olga and whether Tatiana might reconsider when Gremin dies!

As testament to the power of Tchaikovsky's music we confess that we are still playing the themes in our head!  In this case, Jonathan Lyness' orchestral reduction was performed by 11 musicians under the baton of Dmitry Glivinskiy who brought out every ounce of Russian soul in the string quartet which sat at audience level, with the wind instruments and keyboard on one side of the raised stage. Aside from an occasional pitch problem in the strings, the music sounded just fine.

The singing was good all around with soprano Megan Nielson making a winsome Tatiana and Melanie Ashkar using her lustrous mezzo-soprano and spirited dramatic instincts to create a very believable feckless younger sister Olga. Jeremy Moore used his mellow baritone to create an Onegin who seemed to represent a more modern sophisticated fellow rather than the arrogant selfish fellow of the Pushkin poem. We favor this interpretation because he must have some good qualities to win the affection of the sensitive Tatiana. And because we have good feelings about men who do not deceive women!

As the poet Lensky, tenor Chris Georgetti gave his all and elicited audience sympathy with a finely wrought "Kuda, kuda". How interesting that the most famous aria from this opera, heard often at competitions, was not given to the "hero". Tatiana's "letter scene" is equally famous but rather long and not as often performed.  (Coincidentally, we just heard  and reviewed it the previous night.) We thought Ms. Nielson sang it very well with many shades of coloration.

Milica Nikcevic was fine as Madame Larina, as was Noelle Currie in the role of the nanny Filippyevna, although looking much too young to be a grandmother. Steven Fredericks had the right voice (bass) and appearance to create the dignified Prince Gremin who has been rejuvenated by his young wife. Indeed Tatiana has by the end of the opera matured into her station in life and Ms. Nielson conveyed that vocally and dramatically.

Finally, let us mention tenor Eric Alexieff whose performance as Monsieur Triquet was very fine without indulging in any over-the-top foppery. One of the highlights of Benjamin Spierman's direction was that very scene in which his musical encomium to Tatiana resulted in her embarrassment and some tolerant eye-rolling among the assembled guests.

There were some other enjoyable touches in the direction of the second act including the flirtation between Olga and Onegin, the confrontation between Onegin and Lensky, and Lensky's aria in which he kneels down on the ground when thinking about the possibility of going to his grave.  If Mr. Spierman was responsible for the choreography of the country ball and the city ball, props to him for that as well.

The direction of Act I was not quite as interesting. There is a very special moment when Filippyevna teases Tatiana by pretending to not know which neighbor was going to be the recipient of her letter. By playing it straight, an opportunity was missed to tell us something about their relationship. We also didn't get much of a sense of the comradeship between Filippyevna and Madame Larina.  We did, however, get the warmth of the relationship between the two sisters.

The only major flaw in the production must be attributed to the costuming. We do not expect authentic period attire in a low budget production but we could think of ways to suggest an earlier time period that would have worked well.  Jeans and shirts just seemed wrong. We don't know a woman who doesn't possess a peasant style blouse and a long skirt!  Anything would have been better than the "just walked in off the street" attire. In the ballroom scene of Act II, all the women wore long gowns and that seemed much better.

It also struck us as wrong that Filippyevna looked more glamorous than Madame Larina.

Cutting the large chorus of serfs permitted the work to be performed in just over a couple hours. We were very impressed by the talent of the cast and how effectively the tale was told. We will see this opera over and over again but we doubt whether we will have the same feeling of intimacy with the characters as we did through Utopia Opera.

There is one more performance tonight at Hunter College at 7:30 and we strongly recommend it!

(c) meche kroop

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Benjamin Laude, Maya Lahyani, Elad Kabilio

Last night we experienced "Music Talks" for the very first time. We hope it will not be the last. Host and master cellist Elad Kabilio has a mission of presenting classical music in an intimate and informal setting, bringing this music to a broader public. On the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, he has skills as an educator and manages to convey quite a bit of helpful information without talking down to his audience.

He founded "Music Talks" four years ago and we were happy to be made aware of his project by the sensational Israeli mezzo-soprano Maya Lahyani whom we first noticed (and reviewed) at last year's Gerda Lissner Awards Recital in which she sang the "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen.

We are far from experts in the field of chamber music but we are eager to learn and profited by Mr. Kabilio's comments about Russian music. Not only were the comments useful but there was live demonstration on both cello and on Benjamin Laude's piano that sharpened our listening skills.

Aside from the vocal music, which we will come to shortly, we heard selections from three generations of Russian composers. As one may have predicted, our Romantic ears responded most enthusiastically to Tchaikovsky's Nocturne for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op. 19.

We learned that a Nocturne was generally played at the end of an evening of music and we learned to listen for the opening theme in the cello which was lavishly embroidered by the piano when it returned after the lavish coda of the second section.

We then heard Chant du Ménestrel, Op. 71  by Alexander Glazunov, who came along a generation after Tchaikovsky. The cello was intense and we related best to the lyrical center section.

Stravinsky's revolutionary tendencies and eclecticism were discussed before we heard his 1925 Serenade in A for piano, beautifully played by Mr. Laude. We learned why this composer returned to Romanticism for this work and why each of the four sections lasts only 3 minutes. (If you can guess why and write it in the comments section below, you will get a free subscription to the blog!)

The first part "Hymn" was an homage to Chopin and once Mr. Laude played the original Chopin melody on the piano, we could better appreciate what Stravinsky did to it. We also learned about how he avoided defining the major/minor issue at the conclusion of the piece "Cadenza Finale".

As valuable as the instrumental part of the program was, we found the highest level of interest in the vocal section. Ms. Lahyani is a mezzo of the highest order who can be seen and heard onstage at the Metropolitan Opera. She has a voluptuous plushy sound that was just right for Sergei Rachmaninoff's Romantic songs. The first four were composed when Rachmaninoff was barely past his teenage years.

We loved the intense drama of "Oh Stay, my love, forsake me not!" written in the throes of an ill-fated love affair with a girl who had (insert gasp) "Gypsy blood". "Morning" is a gentle song which Ms. Lahyani swelled to a fine climax. "In the silence of the mysterious night" was followed by our favorite "Do not sing, my beauty, to me".

This is among our dozen favorite songs by ANY composer. The minor key melody is memorable and the words are haunting and ineffably sad. It is still running through our brain and inhabiting our heart. Ms. Lahyani did particularly well with the vocalise section. The depth of feeling and variety of dynamics were impressive.

We also heard an intense song from a later period of Rachmaninoff's oeuvre--"All once I gladly owned", and as encore, Tchaikovsky's well known "None but the lonely heart".

To our ears, Ms. Lahyani's Russian sounded just fine but our native born Russian companion told us that although the words were mostly comprehensible, the Russian was pronounced with a significant accent.

We have one criticism of this otherwise superb performance. We have written often about the use of a music stand. In this case, Ms. Lahyani barely looked at it and we had the impression that the score was there more as a security blanket. But it does serve to interrupt the connection with the audience.

All told, it was a most worthwhile evening--mostly entertaining with a healthy dose of instruction.

(c) meche kroop