MUSIC
SADLER'S WELLS revival of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin is most welcome, and promises to be one of their major successes with the public. The work is probably Tchaikovsky's masterpiece, with hardly a false step, a dull moment or an error of taste in its seven scenes. The lachrymose and nostalgic side of the composer's tem- perament finds scope, but is properly channelled in Tatiana's unhappy romantic temperament and Onegin's Byronic remorse ; and there is plenty of diversion with the " folk " interludes, the very Russian " nanny darling " and the very French tutor, the duel and two ballroom _scenes, one provincial and the other metropolitan.
Pushkin's story, even its barest bones, remains deeply moving, the classical story of the clash between unreflecting innocence and spoiled worldliness, where innocence is doubly punished and yet worldliness revealed for what it is, a pathetic blindness and hopeless confusion of values. If Tchaikovsky's own emotional entanglement while he was writing the opera helped him to understand, even to identify himself in imagination with, Tatiana, then his tragi-comic marriage was justified, at least to. posterity. The modem difficulty is to find a singer who, by her acting as well as her singing of the part, can give a faithful illusion of Tatiana 's goodness and simplicity, her impetuous and passionate innocence and, at the end, her innate dignity. Tatiana is not at all a modern character ; her sister Olga is far nearer the modern ideal, knows more and cares less. Onegin himself, disillusioned and prudent, is more easily represented, for all his. Byronic posing ; and even he discovers at last a capacity for love, although only in time to reopen the wound in Tatiana's heart and to show him the full price of the pearl which he has unthinkingly rejected.
Amy Shuard and Frederick Sharp sang these two parts with much sympathy and understanding, though without giving us' the full range of Tatiana 's ingenuous, uncomprehending passion or suggest- ing the charm, to a provincial girl, of Onegin's urbane aloofness and cold savoirfaire. Musically Miss Shuard was at her best in the last scene, where the dramatic ousts the lyrical. In soft passages and in the middle and the lower registers her voice lacks warmth and charac- ter, nor does she command the range of tone and expressiveness to carry off the Letter Scene wholly satisfactorily. Mr. Sharp's voice is admirably suited to the part, only occasionally lacking in weight and darkness of tone. Elisabeth Robinson made a pretty well-contrasted Olga, a most suitably (and unusually) kittenish contralto, who will be very useful to the company. Outstandingly good were Anna Pollak as Mme. Larina—admirable in appearance and style and the only member of the cast who seemed perfectly at home in Pushkin's story—and Olwen Price as the old nurse. Rowland Jones's Lensky was vocally excellent, and, in the duel scene he overcame a certain stodginess and clumsiniss of diction and movement which were noticeable in the first act. The beauty of George James's voice made Prince Gremiri's aria one of the big moments of the evening, and if he was produced rather more skilfully his playing of the part would be wholly admirable.
The only major disappointment of the evening came from the orchestra, where the wood-wind and horn-playing was really very poor—most unfortunately and most noticeably, because Tchaikovsky has filled his score, from the prelude onwards, with antiphonal solo passages for these instruments, which continually form a kind of mosaic or ornamental inlay over the body of the strings. The accompaniment of the singers throughout was often coarse in quality and altogether too heavy, a common fault at Sadler's Wells of which the management, to judge by recent proposals, is aware. The sets were without exception excellent, though even on so small a stage Mme. Larina's garden might be given rather more charm and luxuriance. I particularly liked the bald and bearded Slavophil gentleman who talked all through the Larin's party ; but I question Tatiana's nurse sitting, be-sequined, with the local gentry.
MARTIN COOPER.
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