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Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Solti’s ‘Eugene Onegin’, London 1971

1971. Royal Opera House, London
Georg Solti conducts Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin' in 1971, his final new production as Music Director at the Royal Opera House.
Composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Conductor Georg Solti
Singers Victor Braun, Ileana Cotrubas, Robert Tear
Ensemble Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Genre Opera

Eugene Onegin at Covent Garden 1971

Tchaikovsky’s most popular opera was neglected by Covent Garden Opera during the post-war period; during the 1950s it was the preserve of Sadler’s Wells Opera.  His later Queen of Spades had been presented by the young company as early as 1950 in a production initially conducted by Erich Kleiber, revived during several seasons between 1951 and 1956, finally in 1961 in memorable performances conducted by Alexander Melik-Pashayev with Richard Lewis and Marie Collier in the leading roles, one of which is in the Music Preserved collection awaiting publication.  Georg Solti left Eugene Onegin until the final season of his 10-year music directorship, but it proved worth the wait.

If asked to name one production which epitomised Solti’s qualities, this would be my choice, rather than the Wagner and Strauss, Mozart and Verdi for which he was more noted.  By 1971, he had a settled team of trusted orchestral Principals, and he had discarded some of the over-tense dynamic exaggerations of his earlier years without losing the sensuality and attention to detail which were his hallmark.  He was also able to renew his partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Director Peter Hall, which had begun auspiciously with the landmark staging of Schoenberg’s Moses and Aaron in 1965, but tottered with an over-ponderous Magic Flute in 1966.  Hall directed three productions during the 1970/71 season, beginning with the acclaimed premiere of Tippett’s Knot Garden conducted by Solti’s designated successor Colin Davis and concluding with Solti’s farewell production of Tristan und Isolde.  For Eugene Onegin he chose an unfamiliar designer, Julia Trevelyan Oman, whose meticulous attention to detail created the perfect setting for his subtly observed relationships between the characters, in a handsome staging which endured ten revivals between 1972 and 1988.

At that final 1988 revival, the opera was performed in Russian with Mirella Freni and Wolfgang Brendel as the rather elderly principals and Freni’s husband Nicolai Ghiaurov luxury casting as Gremin.  But most of the previous performances were sung in the idiomatic and singable translation by David Lloyd-Jones commissioned for the new production.  Listening to this recording, you may appreciate the clarity and skill with which the text is communicated in the vernacular, supremely so by the young Romanian Tatyana, Ileana Cotrubas.  So ideal is her pure and focused tone, so disarming her sincerity, that it comes as a surprise that she was the last singer to be cast and that the management explored several other options, hesitating before engaging her until the autumn before the opening because she was regarded as too little-known.  Cotrubas won the International Vocal Competition at ‘s Hertogenbosch aged 26 in 1965, and joined the Frankfurt Opera in 1968.  She made her UK debut at Glyndebourne as Mélisande in 1969 and won all hearts there the following summer in the title role of Cavalli’s Calisto alongside Janet Baker’s Diana in Raymond Leppard’s realisation. She became a favourite of leading conductors such as Carlos Kleiber, for whom she sang unforgettable performances as Violetta and Mimì.  She returned as Tatyana in this English production in 1972 and again as late as 1986.

The title role was played by Canadian baritone Victor Braun, then a member of Bavarian State Opera but with an active guest career. He had previously created the title role in Humphrey Searle’s Hamlet at Covent Garden, but succumbed to illness at the second performance; and he returned as the Count in the new production of Nozze di Figaro which inaugurated Colin Davis’s music directorship later in 1971.  His son Russell Braun has also enjoyed a successful career in similar repertory.

The quality of the ensemble at that time is demonstrated by the youthful poise of Yvonne Minton’s Olga, never sung better in my experience; and by Robert Tear’s Lensky, his second role with the company after his debut as Dov in Knot Garden a couple of months earlier.  Tear may lack the mellifluous or plangent tenor sound normally associated with the role, but he really sculpts the phrases.  Listen to how he shades his voice for the reprise of the opening phrase of his aria before the duel: ‘How far, how far away they seem now, O golden days when I was young’.  Pamela Bowden and Noreen Berry are wholly believable in the elder roles of Larina and Filipyevna.  Their family group huddled together with Tatyana and Olga after the disastrous challenge at the first ball remains an indelible memory of a production which achieved a rare perfection.

Nicholas Payne
8 October 2024

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)

Eugene Onegin

Track 1: Act 1, Scene 1

Track 2: Act 1, Scene 2

Track 3: Act 1, Scene 3

Track 4: Act 2, Scene 1

Track 5: Act 2, Scene 2

Track 6: Act 3, Scene 1

Track 7: Act 3, Scene 2

The opera is sung in English, in a translation by David-Lloys-Jones.

This recording was taken from a relay of a performance at the Royal Opera House on 13 February 1971.

The recording is in the Tolansky/Tschaikov Collection at Music Preserved.

  • Ileana Cotrubas
    Tatyana
  • Yvonne Minton
    Olga
  • Victor Braun
    Eugene Onegin
  • Robert Tear
    Vladimir Lensky
  • Don Garrard
    Prince Gremin
  • Pamela Bowden
    Mme Larina
  • Noreen Berry
    Filipyevna
  • John Lanigan
    Monsieur Triquet
  • Neil Howlett
    A captain
  • The Royal Opera Chorus
  • The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
  • Georg Solti
    Conductor

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