The Week's Music..

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 944, 13 September 1957, Page 26

The Week's Music..

by

SEBASTIAN

--. |= is quite the thing to find highishbrow circles treating Tchaikovski and his works with scorn and neglect these days. Too tuneful for modernist tastes, too lush for comparison with today’s astringent orchestrations, too sentimental for the present classical palate -it seems, to hear the armchair critics, as if poor Tchaikovski reached all the wrong answers by all the wrong methods. Yet these opinions could be wrong: on the other side of the coin, this composer still tops popularity polls, is freely arranged, has vast numbers of recordings of his work, and, in brief, presents incontrovertible evidence that his star refuses to wane. Tuneful, lush, sentimental perhaps-rarely tasteless or lacking imagination-these qualities have wide appeal, and the music can be understood by everyone, a feature not seen, for instance, in Berg or Britten. Apart from isolated scenes, Tchaikovski’s operas are still neglected in favour of orchestral works; but his reputation will not suffer from the performance of Eugen Onegin (YC link) as a studio presentation by an NZBS cast with the National Orchestra conducted by James Robertson. Here the composer is at his most lyrical, and the folk element often illumines the, music, making it even

more homely and personal. There are many passages of real beauty, and much musical finesse that puts the opera on a higher aesthetic plane than the equally popular Italian operas. This performance was*in English, which met my unqualified approval, and the translation seemed adequate on the whole. Balance was excellent, for there were no disadvantages of staging, and yet there was a full humanity to it, without the padded aridity of many studio productions. The Orchestra was in good form, and apart from some solo lapses in intonation, set mood and scene admirably; while the chorus (Phoenix Choir) sang finely, fulfilling its primary duty of providing contrast to the soloists. The latter were led by Sybil Phillipps as Tatiana, around whom the entire opera is written. She excelled herself here, with a feeling for the part and its emotional storms that commanded respect, and her scenes with Onegin were particularly convincing. The other characters, even Onegin himself (Ninian Walden) are more or less subsidiary, but all sang well, and not an erg of dramatic impact was lost. The whole production was a fit successor to the three of last year, a delight from beginning to end; well played, New Zealand!