A Russian delegation of one held her own summit at the Benedum Center Saturday night as soprano Anna Samuil put on a remarkable performance in Pittsburgh Opera's production of Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin." And the other delegates, as it were, in the cast held up their end of the bargain excellently.
Pittsburgh Opera took a risk in choosing not to postpone the opera that opened its 2009-10 season. The real possibility existed that fallout from the G-20 summit would keep patrons away. As it stood, Benedum Center was the least full it has been for a gala opening night I have ever seen, but it was still a good two-thirds full, and the crowd was vocal. It seems it takes more than threat of lingering protests and police lockdown to scare off a passionate opera crowd.
Based on a novel by Alexander Pushkin, the plot of "Eugene Onegin" (which premiered in 1879), hinges not on a villain but on more of a jerk: the Mr. Darcy-like Onegin. Rather than billow out into romantic conceptions of love, the opera focuses on the common infatuation of a bookish girl, Tatiana, in love with a loner type in Onegin. While she and Onegin are members of the idle rich class in pre-revolutionary Russian, the opera has a modern ambience to it. It could easily be updated as a teen movie.
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