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Eugene Onegin Help

11K views 41 replies 15 participants last post by  SixFootScowl 
#1 · (Edited)
I recently bought and watched Eugene Onegin, and adored it. This is the version, which I am very pleased with:



However, I would now like to buy a cd (or mp3) version of the opera so that I can listen to the music on its own without the drama if I want to. I did my usual searching for bargains and found a very cheap version:



However I don't want to buy a cheap version if it isn't very good because I like it so much, so I wonder if anyone knows a good version they can recommend me please? Is this one any good? I am not an audiophile so I don't mind if it is bad sound, I am more interested in the performance.

Thanks in advance.
 
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#9 ·
I just finished this DVD. It was my first experience of this opera and I loved it! Fleming and Hvorostovsky are so good that I am not sure I can watch a different performance of this opera and not sadly wish for more Fleming and Hvorostovsky.

It is a tragedy but on deeper analysis I see it as a tragedy only for Onegin. Onegin is self centered through and through. It is by the grace of God that Tatyana did not get married to him. Can you imagine he would be any better husband now than he figured he'd have been before? I could just see him going off on affairs in due time, once he tired of the novelty of Tatyana.

But the opera could have a sequel too where Onegin comes back and goads Prince Gremin to the point of a duel, kills the Prince, and now Tatyana is free to marry him. Maybe better they didn't go there.

What makes this opera so great to me is that Tatyana remains true to her vow over and above her passions. Great, solid moral ending.
 
#13 ·
found a very cheap version:



However I don't want to buy a cheap version if it isn't very good because I like it so much, so I wonder if anyone knows a good version they can recommend me please? Is this one any good? I am not an audiophile so I don't mind if it is bad sound, I am more interested in the performance.
That looks to be the classic Soviet era recording from 1937 with Nortsov as Onegin, Kozlovsky as Lensky and Kruglikova as Tatiana. The conducting was tag-teamed by Melik-Pashaev and Orlov. No idea how that particular transfer sounds (I have the Naxos version) but it's a classic, with one of the great Lensky performances. Mono sound, fairly vivid for the era particularly the voices, but the band is a little dim.

I don't know if I have a favorite, but I tend to spin this one, the Khaikin from 1955 and the 2007 Barenboim most often.
 
#18 ·
Ok, I currently have the following sets on CD:

Some good singing, others sound odd, partly due to it being sung in English. Great for learning the story though and associating it with the music:


My favorite so far and I suspect the best one not sung by native Russians:


I don't care for this as much as the Levine set above. Yes, has my favorite baritone, Hvorostovski, but the rest of the singers don't seem as good as on the Levine set.
 
#19 ·
I have this one on order and it is very promising from the sound clips anyway:



Also have this one on order and it also is very promising:


I am told that I need this set, but am reluctant because of the sound quality is fair but not super. Also pretty expensive used, except if D'Oro release which maybe is not as good of sound as this one?:
 
#21 ·
I am told that I need this set, but am reluctant because of the sound quality is fair but not super. Also pretty expensive used, except if D'Oro release which maybe is not as good of sound as this one?:
If you love this opera, you really have to have this set. A conductor friend of mine who was just getting to know the work, asked me for my recommendation after listening to one or two more modern recordings, which hadn't really sold it to him. I told him to try the Khaikin and the Bychkov with Hvorostovsky. Once he heard the Khaikin he was in raptures. "This is exactly how I thought it should go," he said, "But nobody else seems to get it."
 
#23 · (Edited)
Now here is something very interesting and blessed by Galina Vishnevskaya (my bold):

"I made my first operatic recording, EUGEN ONÉGIN, with Boris Khaikin, a conductor from the Bolshoi, and the singers Evgeny Belov and Sergei Lemeshev....by then fifty-four and for decades the most famous Russian tenor [who] rejoiced like a child that he had finally had the opportunity to record his favorite role. How fortunate for future generations of singers and the listening public that this outstanding singer has left his unsurpassed interpretation of Lensky to posterity….For dozens of years Sergei Lemeshev was the public's idol....and in Soviet Russia there has not been - and will not be for years to come - an artist to equal the enchantment of his voice, his irresistible charm, and his mastery. Everything about him was artistic....On the stage, until the end of his career, he was a youth, beloved and vulnerable. Even at seventy he still drove his admirers into ecstasies every time he sang Lensky at the Bolshoi....."

- Galina Vishnevskaya, GALINA, pp.174, 176 & 324

OP2892. EUGEN ONÉGIN, Live Performance, 28 Oct., 1954, w.Doniyakh Cond. Leningrad Maly Opera Ensemble; Sergei Shaposhnikov, Sergei Lemeshev, Vera Kudriavtseva, Olga Golovina, Alexandra Mescheryakova, etc. (Russia) 2-Aquarius AQVR 380. [The audience's excited response is quite palpable, especially with Lemeshev's initial appearance! This performance is clearly an 'event'!] - 4607123631454
 
#24 · (Edited)
If you're a fan of Wunderlich or Prey, there's a good live German version conducted by Keilberth on Gala. Wonderful Lensky's aria, as you would expect with Wunderlich. I have it on CD but from a little googling, I see it's also available at Operadepot, and on video from a couple of different sources, and now that I look on youtube, I see it's there as well.



The sound quality is significantly better on my CD than on this youtube video. I'd not heard of the Tatiana, one Ingeborg Bremert, but she has an attractive, likeable lyric voice. The rest of the principals (Wunderlich, Prey, Fassbaender) are of course known quantities.

There's also the Barenboim video with Peter Mattei that I'm a big fan of--not so much the staging, but the audio is excellent. I ripped the audio from the DVD so I could listen to it audio only, which I do fairly often. Otherwise, you've already identified the other easily recommendable versions--the Khaikin, the Levine with Allen and Freni, the Bychkov, and the Orlov/Melik-Pashaev with Nortsov and Kruglikova.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I really like the Solti recording:

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It's interesting that there haven't been more recordings of this opera and not many conductors have managed to express the subtle passion of the music. The Levine is well sung, but it doesn't quite convince me, the Bychkov doesn't hit the spot for me either. I like the conducting on the Khaikin set, however I really can't get on with Vishnevskaya (Tatiana should never shriek) and I prefer Kozlovsky over Lemeshev. Of the early Russian recordings I think this one beats the Khaikin:

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Kruglikova is very much a typical soprano voice of that time, but Orlov's conducting carries this performance of the opera. The most important role is Onegin himself and I find it is often underplayed. Ivanov deserves to be better known, he has a warm, solid voice and sings with expressive commitment to Onegin's ever changing emotions and his tragic fate. Kozlovsky is pure soul and you get the great Mark Reizen as Gremin so I don't think there is a better sung Onegin out there. However, it's Orlov's way with the score that makes this my favourite Onegin.

N.
 
#26 · (Edited)
I really like the Solti recording:

View attachment 114323

It's interesting that there haven't been more recordings of this opera and not many conductors have managed to express the subtle passion of the music. The Levine is well sung, but it doesn't quite convince me, the Bychkov doesn't hit the spot for me either. I like the conducting on the Khaikin set, however I really can't get on with Vishnevskaya (Tatiana should never shriek) and I prefer Kozlovsky over Lemeshev. Of the early Russian recordings I think this one beats the Khaikin:

View attachment 114325

Kruligova is very much a typical soprano voice of that time, but Orlov's conducting carries this performance of the opera. The most important role is Onegin himself and I find it is often underplayed. Ivanov deserves to be better known, he has a warm, solid voice and sings with expressive commitment to Onegin's ever changing emotions and his tragic fate. Kozlovsky is pure soul and you get the great Mark Reizen as Gremin so I don't think there is a better sung Onegin out there. However, it's Orlov's way with the score that makes this my favourite Onegin.

N.
I've heard the Khaikin recording so many times, and I don't recall the young Vishneskaya shrieking once. What I do remember is the outpouring of unfettered, youthful passion in the Letter Scene. To me she is just about ideal. Kubiak, by contrast, on the Solti set you like sounds far too mature and knowing, more like a traditional Tosca, which indeed was a role she was singing at Covent Garden at the time of this recording. Aside from that, I don't think there is a Russian in the cast, and it sounds totally unidiomatic to me.

There are other virtues to the Khaikin as well of course, not least the Lensky of Lemeshev. I think it one of the great opera recordings.
 
#33 ·
Essential Onegin on DVD:

1) Gergiev (Kwiecen/Netrebko) - Netrebko in possibly her finest role. The production is good without being dull or too outside the box.

2) Termikanov (Leiferkus/Novikova) - This is an old fashioned production from the Maryinsky in the 80s (when it was the Kirov). However, the conducting is a superb reading of an opera I think is difficult to get right and the cast is excellent (with Leiferkus and Diadkova before they were famous).

3) Solti (Weikl/Kubiak) This is a film of the opera and quite well done, although I know some people don't like film opera. The soundtrack is the Solti recording and has flaws, but I like his approach to this score.

It looks like you don't have number 2, I think it is well worth getting.

N.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Essential Onegin on DVD:

1) Gergiev (Kwiecen/Netrebko) - Netrebko in possibly her finest role. The production is good without being dull or too outside the box.

2) Termikanov (Leiferkus/Novikova) - This is an old fashioned production from the Maryinsky in the 80s (when it was the Kirov). However, the conducting is a superb reading of an opera I think is difficult to get right and the cast is excellent (with Leiferkus and Diadkova before they were famous).

3) Solti (Weikl/Kubiak) This is a film of the opera and quite well done, although I know some people don't like film opera. The soundtrack is the Solti recording and has flaws, but I like his approach to this score.

It looks like you don't have number 2, I think it is well worth getting.

N.
Thank you! I just ordered a used VG copy of the Termikanov DVD for $9.99 off of ebay.
 
#40 ·
It's not great. My parents had it on LP. mostly because there weren't any other recordings easily available at the time. (It was on Decca Ace of Clubs). You couldn't get any of the Russian recordings in the West at that time. It's been completely superseded since.
 
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