Acclaimed English director Deborah Warner‘s new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, conducted by Valery Gergiev, will be the season premiere of Great Performances at the Met Friday, January 17 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The opera stars Anna Netrebko, Mariusz Kwiecien, and Piotr Beczala.
This past fall, Anna Netrebko opened her third consecutive Met season — which will mark her ninth Great Performances at the Met broadcast — in her company role debut as Tatiana, the naïve heroine from Pushkin’s classic novel.
Mariusz Kwiecien portrays the title character, in a much-admired interpretation he has sung in many of the world’s leading opera houses, and Piotr Beczala reprises his acclaimed performance as Onegin’s friend-turned-rival, Lenski.
Due to an unexpected surgical procedure this fall, Warner was unable to travel to the Met to stage Eugene Onegin, which is being directed here by her longtime collaborator Fiona Shaw. Reviewing Warner’s production, the Sunday Telegraph praised its “mixture of haunting visual and emotional impact: cutting straight to the heart of the work, [Warner] shows how Onegin is simultaneously about two colliding Russian societies—rustic provincialism and cosmopolitan decadence—and three wasted lives.”
Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts the broadcast and conducts backstage interviews with the stars.
Eugene Onegin was originally seen live in movie theaters on October 5, 2013 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 2,000 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 countries around the world.
Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN for WNET Productions LLC, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. Throughout its 40 year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming. Now in its fifth decade, the series has been the home to the greatest artists in the areas of drama, dance, musical theater, classical and popular music, providing many with their very first television exposure.
Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Major funding for the Met Opera presentation is provided by Donald G. Sisler. This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public television viewers.
For the Met, Gary Halvorson directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.
