EUGENE ONEGIN – REVIEW OF 2026 LIVE IN HD FROM THE MET PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The bad news is that New York’s Metropolitan Opera has a deficit of $30 million for the 2025 -2026 season that nears its end. The good news is that we are still able to see some Live from the Met in HD transmissions. The latest one was Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in a revival of Deborah Warner’s 2013 production. It represented the 165^th performance of the opera at the Met.

The production boasts a first-rate cast with soprano Asmik Grigorian as Tatiana and baritone Iurii Samoilov as Onegin. Tatiana is the young, impressionable girl living on the family estate, mostly reading books. She goes for a walk with the dashing Onegin and falls passionately in love with him. We do not see the walk. Tatana wants to tell Onegin that she loves him so she spends a night composing a letter to him. Alas, Onegin rebuffs her, ever so politely.

She grows up, marries a decent aristocrat and in the end sends Onegin packing when he tries to get her to leave her husband. She may love him but she will not betray her husband,

That is the role that Grigorian must fulfil. The letter scene is the heart of the opera and         she delivers the fears, doubts, love and passion demanded. She sings beautifully and communicates all those emotions to the audience.

Asmik Grigorian, Maria Barakova, Iurii Samoilov, and Stanislas de Barbeyrac. 
Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

Samoilov has all the traits of a jerk but he comes out better than that perhaps because he appears to have matured. He dumped the innocent Tatiana and killed his friend in a duel after acting abominably towards him but we see him repentant.  There he is. Samoilov has a marvelous voice and he gives us a vocally splendid and theatrically credible Onegin.

Tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac sings the sympathetic role of the tragic poet Lenski, Onegin’s friend and dueling victim as well as Olga’s betrothed. He is decent but jealous and challenges Onegin to a duel. He sings the beautiful farewell aria with surpassing passion and beauty.

Tatiana’s sister Olga is sung by mezzo-soprano Maria Barakova. She is not a diehard romantic like her sibling and flirts with Onegin causing the duel. A fine performance. The lesser roles of Filippyevna (Larissa Diadkova), Prince Gremin (bass-baritone Alexander Tsymbalyuk) are sung splendidly.

Unfortunately, I cannot give the same praise to the set designed by Tom Pye and some of the blame must go to producer Deborah Warner unless she had no input in it. The opera is set on a large and wealthy estate. The opening scene takes place in an outside structure of the estate. It has dirty windows and I have no idea what Tatiana and Olga are doing there or what the building is supposed to be. The peasants enter through there so it can’t be part of the house but I did not like the drab look.

The second and all-important letter scene is set in Tatiana’s’ bedroom. There is no bed and she is writing the letter on the floor. I have no idea why. The ballroom in the house on the estate is not much better.

On to the palace of Prince Gremin, Tatiana’s husband. We have Greco-Roman columns (they always look impressive) but hardly beautiful, there is no ceiling and it looks like we are out in the open with a blue sky on top.

Maestro Timur Zangiev conducted Met Orchestra and Chorus in Tchaikovsky’s lush and beloved score.

Eugene Onegin by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (libretto by the composer and K. S. Shilovsky after Pushkin) was shown Live in HD on May 2, 2026, at the Cineplex Theatre, Shops at Don Mills, Toronto and other theatres across Canada. Encore showing on May 16, 2026. For more information go to: www.cineplex.com/events

James Karas is the Culture Editor of The Greek Press, Toronto

BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE AND ERWARTUNG – REVIEW OF 2026 REVIVAL OF LEPAGE PRODUCTIONS

Reviewed by James Karas

The Canadian Opera Company in 1993 produced two infrequently staged operas, namely Bela Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Arnold Schoenberg’s ERWARTUNG. The director of both works was the inimitable Robert Lepage. The productions were reprised in 2015 and eleven years later they are back at the Four Seasons Centre with Francois Racine as the revival director.

Both one-acters are twentieth century operas and are a long way from Verdi and Puccini. Duke Bluebeard brings his new wife Judith to his dark and formidable castle. Before the curtain rises, they walk across the stage; he is dressed in a blue uniform and she is walking behind him in a trailing bridal gown. Then Set and Costume designer Michael Levine shows the newlywed couple in the long walls of the dark castle and the Duke asks her if she wants to go back to her family and her betrothed.

They address each other affectionately and she insists that she wants to stay because she loves him. She will change the cold castle into something warm, she says. She notices seven doors that are locked and wants to open them all.

American bass-baritone Christian van Horn is an upright and sonorous Bluebeard who is clearly hiding something but he expresses his love for Judith and tries to dissuade her from opening the seven doors that are represented by projected lights that resemble keyholes.

Karen Cargill and Christian van Horn in Bluebeard's Castle. 

Photo: Michael Cooper

Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill as Judith is a woman in love who has given up everything to be with Bluebeard. She will not be dissuaded from opening the mysterious doors and she stays in the castle despite the dreary milieu and the frightful sights that she encounters upon opening the seven doors. 

We watch the revelations as they appear when the doors are opened. The Torture Chamber, the Armory, the Treasury, The Secret Garden, The Kingdom, the Lake of Tears and finally The Silent Wives. Different colors of lights flash through the doors, the contents are covered in blood and tensions are rising  about Bluebeard’s true character. We fear that Judith’s demand to see what is behind every door without understanding the dangers that are perhaps all too obvious could end in tragedy. The music varies from dissonant and discordant to martial, to shimmering, to expansive, to funereal and finally to hushed horror as Judith joins the procession of Bluebeard’s three former wives as they all march towards eternity.

Cargill gives a superb performance, revealing Judith’s strength in insisting on finding the truth and her failure to realize the abyss that she is walking into. She expresses both strength and naivete and we follow her thoughts and development while listening to  her vocal prowess and beauty.

Lepage controls the conduct of the characters and maintains the macabre atmosphere and fearful situation with Hitchcockian finesse. A brilliant production.

ERWARTUNG (it means expectation) is described as a one-act expressionist monodrama for a solo soprano and a large orchestra. The soprano, called simply The Woman, in this production is Anna Gabler and her partner is the COC Orchestra conducted by Johannes Debus.

For half an hour, we follow the Woman through a gamut of  emotions, states of mind and crises. There is darkness and a long wall. She is in a forest looking for her lover. We see a man in a white coat, there is cot or is it a hospital bed on the stage? Is she hallucinating? She is looking for her lover and finds a body. Is it her dead lover? Her love turns to hatred and jealousy – did her lover have a mistress? She experiences exaltation, fear, horror and anguish. We are not sure of her mental state nor of what she is seeing.

Anna Gabler in ERWARTUNG. 

Photo: Michael Cooper

Schoenberg’s music is atonal, complex and I have heard nothing like it before. It is the second time  that I am seeing this opera and the denseness of the music and the plot, the quick changes in the conduct of the Woman, from possible hallucination to outright madness to whatever one can imagine is out of this world.

I can only express admiration for the performance of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Debus and Lepage’s take on the monodrama.     

Bluebeard’s Castle and ERWARTUNG may not be your regular operatic fare but if you see them, you will not soon forget them. You might find yourself having a great night at the opera.      _________________________

Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartok and ERWARTUNG by Arnold Schoenberg opened on April 25 and will be performed seven times until May 16, 2026, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario.  www.coc.ca

 James Karas is the Culture Editor of The Greek Press, Toronto