Der Rosenkavalier and Eugene Onegin, Garsington Opera review
The IndependentDer Rosenkavalier ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Eugene Onegin ★ ★ ★ ☆☆ Garsington Opera started life in the grounds of a 17th-century Oxfordshire manor house owned by an opera lover, but the company was sent into exile when his descendants decided they wanted to enjoy their home without sharing it with the public; they were also sick of dealing with complaints about noise from non-opera-loving local residents. Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier may be a perennial favourite, but it’s easy to get wrong: it’s a miraculous marriage of words and music, but there are undeniable longueurs, and its central character, a libidinous buffoon named Baron Ochs, can be – and in many productions really is – a royal pain in the arse. open image in gallery Natalia Tanasii’s Tatyana is gracefully sung in Michael Boyd’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ On the other hand, the transcendent scenes when the work’s philosophical core is laid bare are as dreamily suggestive as anyone could wish. open image in gallery Hipp as Octavian and Derrick Ballard as Baron Ochs in Richard Strauss’s ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ And not all the younger singers are up to the challenge of the work.
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