Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (complete opera)

117 Minutes

Cast :-
Bernd Weikl (Onegin)
Teresa Kubiak (Tatyana)
Stuart Burrows (Lensky)
Julia Hamari (Olga)
Michel Sénéchal (Triquet)
Nicolai Ghiaurov (Gremin)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Sir Georg Solti.

A film by Petr Weigl.

Director Petr Weigl is celebrated for his sumptuous opera films, using magnificent natural settings and casting photogenic actors in the principal roles. To support his beautiful cinematography he utilises leading opera recordings, and for his spectacular film of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin he turned to the distinguished Decca recording, conducted by Sir Georg Solti. The result offers "the best of both worlds" - a superb film (similar to the recent feature film Onegin with Ralph Fiennes) married to an acclaimed audio recording.

On the musical side, the golden-voiced Teresa Kubiak is gently moving as Tchaikovsky's heroine, Tatyana (famous for her poignant Letter Scene), Bernd Weikl brings an authentic Slavonic colour to Onegin, and Stuart Burrows's doomed Lensky is one of the tenor's finest performances. Sir Georg Solti captures the full range of Tchaikovsky's emotionally-charged score, and delivers vivid performances of such highlights as the opera's celebrated Waltz and Polonaise.

In the interests of dramatic concision, Petr Weigl's film begins a little way into the opera - for this DVD release, the opening Prelude and Quartet have been restored (in audio only), offering the viewer an optional, extra dimension to the opera.

Also included on the DVD are subtitles in no less than six languages and a new 5.1 DTS Digital surround sound. Eugene Onegin joins Gergiev's Kirov production of Pique Dame and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov as major Russian operas newly on DVD.