April 20, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
Youth Is Served in UNM Production of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Onegin’
Marilyn Tyler says Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s opera “Eugene Onegin” is a good fit for the University of New Mexico Opera Theatre. Tchaikovsky, Tyler said, wrote “Onegin” for students at the Moscow Conservatory, where he was teaching music theory.
“He wanted an intimate setting in which to try out his work,” said Tyler, director of the UNM production and artistic director of the Opera Theatre for 25 years. “He hoped an unspoiled student cast would achieve the intimacy and unaffected performance style he had in mind.”
The composer also wanted student singers because the characters were very young, she said. When the conservatory premiered “Onegin” in 1879 it got a lukewarm reception because the audience wasn’t ready for its realism and was perplexed by the youthfulness of the performers, Tyler explained.
Two years later, the Bolshoi Theatre gave “Onegin” its first professional production.
UNM Opera Theatre will give four performances of the opera Thursday, April 24, through April 27 in UNM’s Keller Hall.
Soprano Melissa Riedel, who is double-cast with Jessica Taylor as Tatyana, said their character is “very intense, very emotional. The music is also very intense. It’s a challenge but it’s a lot of fun.”
Riedel said the first time she saw the opera she thought Tatyana was going to wind up with Onegin because she loves him.
“But she doesn’t because she has integrity. That makes it not so opera-ish. I like that about her character,” said Riedel, a senior majoring in vocal performance.
At the start of the opera’s story, Tatyana, who is infatuated with Onegin, writes a letter proclaiming her love for him. But Onegin tells her the next day that she shouldn’t think of romance and marriage with him because he thinks of her only as a sister. At a party, Onegin flirts with Tatyana’s sister, Olga, who is engaged to Onegin’s friend, Lenski. The constant flirting is too much for Lenski to take. He challenges Onegin to a duel. Lenski is killed.
Six years later, Onegin, after extensive travels, tells Tatyana that now he’s in love with her. But it’s too late. Tatyana, though tempted by his declaration, says she is bound by her duty to her husband.
Javier Ortiz and Paul Bower are double-cast in the title role.
“It’s not a particularly long role, not a huge amount of singing, but it’s set pretty high in the baritone voice, and I’m a bass-baritone,” said Ortiz, who graduated last December from UNM with a bachelor’s degree of music in vocal performance. “It’s a high role but I’m thinking I can do this.”
April has been busy for Ortiz, who was raised in Pojoaque, north of Santa Fe. He had a major role in the recent Teatro Nuevo México production of “La Corte de Faraón” and is the scholarship singer for Asbury United Methodist Church this year.
“We have rehearsals on Wednesday nights and two services on Sunday. I sing solos and in the choir,” he said.
The month has also kept Bower active. He was just in the Opera Southwest production of “Tosca” and he’s the musical director of the New Mexico Young Actors’ production of “Cinderella.”
A baritone, Bower said Onegin is a role that works well for his voice.
“He’s got two arias but they’re very lyrical and they flow very nicely,” he said.
Bower graduated from UNM with a master’s degree in voice in 1999. Since then he’s apprenticed with the San Diego Opera Ensemble, the Des Moines Metro Opera and the Pittsburgh Opera. He’s also sung in concerts with the Santa Fe Symphony and appeared in the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra’s premiere of the opera “Time and Again Barelas.”
Tenor Andre Garcia-Nuthmann, who is double-cast with Seth Hartwell as Lenski, said his arias are a challenge because he must sing them in Russian.
“I’m quite comfortable speaking Spanish and German, but I’ve never sung anything in Russian before,” he said. “The role is incredible. It’s so passionate from the exhilaration he feels in the beginning when he sees Olga, to the second act when jealousy eats away at him.”
Garcia-Nuthmann, who graduated from UNM in 1985, is the coordinator of music and theater at New Mexico Highlands University.
If you go
WHAT: “Eugene Onegin” sung in English and Russian
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24, Friday, April 25, and Saturday, April 26, and
2 p.m. April 27
WHERE: Keller Hall, Center for the Arts, UNM campus
HOW MUCH: $15 general public, $12 seniors, UNM faculty and staff, $10 students at UNM ticket offices in the Bookstore and the Pit, online at www.unmtickets.com or call 925-5858