Opera Review: The Wasted Generation

The Washington National Opera brings back the Robert Carsen production of Eugene Onegin.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Anna Nechaeva falls hard for the title character in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.
Photo courtesy the Washington National Opera and the Kennedy Center.

You can take a boy out of New York City but you can’t take New York out of the boy. That aphorism seems to apply to Sunday’s matinee performance of Eugene Onegin by the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. This production, the WNO’s first staging of Tchaikovsky’s opera in thirty years, uses the Robert Carsen production that premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1997. It is still handsome and minimalist, playing out the drama in a box of plain white wall.s the characters move through drifts of leaves, elegantly attired and perching on antique furniture in this stark landscape.

Opera Review: An Old Cuckold (with Horns on His Head)

Ambrogio Maestri returns as the Met's Falstaff.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Va, vecchio John: Falstaff (Ambrogio Maestri) gives a lesson in personnel management to
Bardolfo (Keith Jameson) and Pistola (Richard Bernstein) in Verdi's Falstaff.
Photo by Karen Almond © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

"It's not going to be my favorite Verdi opera." This, from an attendee on the 1 train riding away from Lincoln Center after the Metropolitan Opera's Wednesday night performance of Falstaff, efficiently sums up the attitude of audiences toward the composer's final opera--and his only successful attempt at writing comedy. Falstaff is a masterwork, but one held in high regard not for its considerable qualities but for its place as Verdi's last musical utterance. On Wednesday night under the baton of Robert Carnes, the opera received a performance that just might change that gentleman's opinion.

Opera Review: The Real Housewives of Windsor

The Met unveils Robert Carsen's Falstaff.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hampered: Falstaff (Ambrogio Maestri, center) seeks an exit in Act II of Verdi's comedy.
Helping him are Meg Page (Jennifer Jonson Cano, l.) and Mistress Quickly (Stephanie Blythe.)
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Falstaff is unique. Verdi's last opera (and his lone successful comedy) arrived when the composer was 79 and still in full command of his powers. Yet despite its tunefulness, the score lacks the "big numbers" of Rigoletto, Aida and Otello, choosing to present the comedy as a complex dialogue between singers and orchestra. As a result, Falstaff, though a respected opera is considered an opera for connoisseurs, and appears only occasionally on the operatic stage.