“EUGENE ONEGIN : Tchaikovsky
Original Air Date: 04/19/1997
Cast: Pappano; Chernov, Gorchakova, Farina, Tarassova, Ognovenko
Media: MOD Audio SID.17400749 Tags: Archive; 2017
We hear so much more of Onegin these days, and this run is Pappano’s (CGarden music director) only Met appearance. Good to hear Chernov again in retrospect. Turned out to not be the Russian Robert Merrill.
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Antonio Pappano, though an American resident for some years has ended up basing most of his operatic career as the music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The Met thought enough to give him this new production as his debut and only run of Met appearances Chernov was originally brought in as a Russian Robert Merrill. The voice is attractive and smoothly lyric, but not a patch on his countryman, Yuri Mazurok, and at least two sizes too small to even be compared to Merrill.
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Even in the Met’s own archives, the Peter G. Davis review of the opening night comes in for some very hard knocks musically for both the singers and the conductor. Why this was picked for MOoD when the two Mazurok broadcasts (regularly on Sirius) were not picked gives one pause about performance selection on MOoD.”