BaL 19.09.20 - Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin

[verismissimo]

… I'm sure some will say it isn't Russian enough ...

But what is 'Russian enough'. My sense is that most music-lovers, over the past decades, have come to experience Russian opera and singing as filled with wobbliness, both in the singing and the orchestral playing. It became the norm, for various reasons, throughout the Soviet era (and after).

Yet if one listens to singers recorded there before the revolution - serious recording started in St Petersburg and Moscow in 1900 - there is a quite different sound, much lower in broad vibrato and closer to the sound of contemporary singers from western Europe.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But what is 'Russian enough'. My sense is that most music-lovers, over the past decades, have come to experience Russian opera and singing as filled with wobbliness, both in the singing and the orchestral playing. It became the norm, for various reasons, throughout the Soviet era (and after).

My thoughts too.

[BBMmk2]

Be interesting this one. I have Barenboim’s recording.

[visualnickmos]

I have Semyon Bychkov's recording on Philips.
Have to say - I'd forgotten I had it, until checking my operas for something entirely different !

[Pulcinella]

I have Semyon Bychkov's recording on Philips.
Have to say - I'd forgotten I had it, until checking my operas for something entirely different !

Does it say where and when it was recorded?
I have a Decca reissue (at least with full libretto) which, unusually for them, says only P 1993 and C 2005.
Listened to CD1 (Act 1) this afternoon.

[visualnickmos]

Does it say where and when it was recorded?
I have a Decca reissue (at least with full libretto) which, unusually for them, says only P 1993 and C 2005.
Listened to CD1 (Act 1) this afternoon.

Yes. Recorded in Paris, 10/1992.

Sarah Walker / Olga Borodina / Dmitri Hvorostovsky / Neil Shicoff / etc,
Orchestre de Paris, St Petersburg Chamber Choir

[visualnickmos]

Tomorrow's listening, I reckon - and see what BaL brings.....

[Pianophile]

I only have the Levine version with Freni and Thomas Allen. I'll be giving it a spin again.
I last saw this opera at the ROH in about 1988 with Freni, Wolfgang Brendel and Ghiaurov. A night to remember.

[zola]

This is now abandoned and will be replaced by a repeat of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. A curious choice given the falling out between McGregor and Marina Frolova-Walker during the discussion. And why repeat any edition of BAL, just play longer extracts of pieces from the remainder of the program ?

[Barbirollians]

I know due to social distancing why not return BAL to its old scripted solo format ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I know due to social distancing why not return BAL to its old scripted solo format ?

I really wish I’d thought of that.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This is now abandoned and will be replaced by a repeat of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. A curious choice given the falling out between McGregor and Marina Frolova-Walker during the discussion.

This is the third “failed” BaL since twofers became standard. Either they’ve been very unlucky, or they lack competence.

[edashtav]

I really wish I’d thought of that.

Me, too.

[BBMmk2]

This is where we miss our opera buff, like IGI, etc.

[mikealdren]

This is the third “failed” BaL since twofers became standard. Either they’ve been very unlucky, or they lack competence.

And sadly they replace it with another Twofer to avoid showing how much better things used to be.

I wonder how they selected this particular episode. It's a shame they didn't go back a bit further, this is too recent in the memory.