One of the very first things I did when I arrived back in my hometown was to check what's on in theatre, exhibitions, museums and concerts - after 6 months of sailing I was starving for something, anything cultural that I could feed my soul with, something to remember. The big disappointment was that tickets for Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" were sold out so I had to go for second option, Tchaikovsky which now in retrospective seems a bit absurd because Tchaikovsky actually came to be far more moving experience than pretty, bubbly and comical Mozart (whom I love dearly) could ever have been.
With dear friends in tow, I went on trough cold and foggy Zagreb towards beautiful, baroque building of Croatian National Theatre where audience was full of Russian visitors - we could clearly hear Russian language everywhere, it was obviously big deal for them. This particular theatre is a serious business, to my knowledge the only place in town that carefully focuses on opera and ballet (unfortunately, I would love to have opera playing everywhere) and the interior is also quite impressive, a full-blown baroque majestic extravaganza that reeks of Austro-Hungarian sophistication, long gone days of bourgeoisie and the place definitely have a special energy, you can almost feel it everywhere. I must admit that from the whole Tchaikovsky repertoire it is his operas that I am truly not so familiar with - loved and often played his ballet music - so I was bit apprehensive about the experience, thinking that this might just fly above my head and I won't recognise anything but luckily I was wrong.
As soon as overture started I closed my eyes and let myself get swept away in beautiful, gorgeous music that felt like some kind of soothing massage. When I opened my eyes, the curtain has already lifted and the stage was breathtaking - what a beautiful, beautiful, imaginative scenery! And how strange that everything that I always disliked about Amsterdam's opera (ultra modern scenery that clashed with the music) was just perfectly right here, in my own hometown - or perhaps my own idea of how opera should be staged is simply old-fashioned magic, with historical costumes and all shebang. Actually the scenery was modern but it was done with such imagination and style that it looked stunning, simple and with few changes it worked just right trough the whole opera - it was truly magnificent to watch, not to mention that music was divine. We struggled a little bit with looking at the stage and reading subtitles simultaneously (of course, it was in Russian) but at certain point one just get accustomed to it (or like in my case, you just say, to hell with it and simply listen Russian language). Where in my childhood I remember operatic stars always being old, fat and looking nothing like romantic heroes at all, this cast was a joy to see as well - in fact, Onegin was actually ass hole of the play and the best music & characterisation was reserved for other roles, specially Tatyana (excellent, wonderful Valentina Fijačko whose letter scene was virtuosic) and Lensky (Stjepan Franetović whose "Kuda,kuda" aria was a highlight of the evening and we all just wallowed in pity for him) but of course main character (played by impressive Ljubomir Puškarić) was brilliant, its just that right now I can't really recall any music sung by him because he was such unlikable role.
Contrary to my expectations, the whole evening was magical and we loved every minute of it. Why on earth the opera is called "Onegin" and not "Lensky" or "Tatyana" I have no idea because they were the true heroes of opera, but than again I don't remember Pushkin original so well so perhaps composer simply had to follow he poet's idea. I am listening bits and pieces of this opera for days now (with 35 operas in my collection, I still don't have complete "Onegin" so far) and still floating in the clouds from this beautiful experience. Unfortunately it seems there are no other operas on repertoire anytime soon (at least nothing classical that would appeal to me, just some modern pieces) otherwise I would, given chance, visit opera every week.
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