This is a magnificent achievement on all sides. In a recording that is wider in range, more immediate than almost any I can recall, the work comes to arresting life under Bychkov's vital direction. Too often of late, on disc and in the theatre, the score has been treated self-indulgently and on too large a scale. Bychkov makes neither mistake, emphasizing the unity of its various scenes, never lingering at slower tempos than Tchaikovsky predicates, yet never moving too fast for his singers. Entirely at the service of Tchaikovsky's marvellous invention, he illuminates every detail of the composer's wondrous scoring with pointed delicacy and draws playing of the utmost acuity and beauty from his own Paris orchestra enhanced by the clear, open recording. I cannot imagine a more captivating and idiomatic account of the piece, even if the Tchakarov runs it close in some respects, and excellent as is Tchakarov's chorus, the St Petersburg Choir is even better, superbly disciplined, alert with their words.
Focile and Hvorostovsky prove almost ideal interpreters of the central roles. Having heard Focile as Nannetta in Stein's famous Welsh National Falstaff I hadn't expected that she would be a suitable candidate for Tatyana either vocally or emotionally. So much for preconceptions: she offers keen-edged yet warm tone and total immersion in Tatyana's character. Aware throughout of the part's dynamic demands, she phrases with complete confidence, eagerly catching the girl's dreamy vulnerability and heightened imagination in the Letter scene, which has that sense of awakened love so essential to it. Then she exhibits Tatyana's new-found dignity on Gremin's arm and finally her desperation when Onegin reappears to rekindle her romantic feelings. Her voice may not have the richer overtones of Tomowa-Sintow (Tchakarov), but she is more capable of indicating Tatyana's palpitating youthfulness, missing only something of the sheerly Russian quality in the young Vishnevskaya's classic reading (Khaikin).
Hvorostovsky, rather cool and uninvolved in the Philips Traviata (see below), is here wholly in his element. His singing has at once the warmth, elegance and refinement Tchaikovsky demands from his anti-hero. He suggests all Onegin's initial disdain, phrasing his address to the distraught and humiliated Tatyana—Focile so touching here—with distinction, and brings to it just the correct bon ton, a kind of detached humanity. He fires to anger with a touch of the heroic in his tone when challenged by Lensky, becomes transformed and single-minded when he catches sight of the 'new' Tatyana at the St Petersburg Ball. Together he, Focile and Bychkov make the finale the tragic climax it should be: indeed I found this passage almost unbearably moving in this reading.
Shicoff has refined and expanded his Lensky since he recorded it for Levine. His somewhat lachrymose delivery suits the character of the lovelorn poet, and he gives his big aria a sensitive, Russian profile, full of much subtlety of accent, the voice sounding in excellent shape, but there is a shade too much self-regard when he opens the ensemble at Larin's party with ''Yes, in your house''. Anisimov is a model Gremin, singing his aria with generous tone and phrasing while not making a meal of it. Olga Borodina is a perfect Olga, spirited, a touch sensual, wholly idiomatic with the text—as, of course, is the revered veteran Russian mezzo Arkhipova as Filipievna, an inspired piece of casting. Sarah Walker, Covent Garden's Filipievna, is here a sympathetic Larina. Also from the Royal Opera comes Egerton's lovable Triquet, but whereas Gergiev, in the theatre, dragged out his couplets inordinately, Bychkov once more strikes precisely the right tempo. Two minor criticisms: why don't Philips employ the Russian transliteration ''Yevgeny'' rather than the discredited ''Eugene'' and why are lines missing from the booklet in the choral passage before Gremin's entrance?
Levine's superficial reading and his less idiomatic cast are totally eclipsed. Not so Tchakarov's version, which has Tomowa-Sintow as a particularly appealing Tatyana, but the ageing Mazurok and Gedda are no match for their successors on this new recording. The Khaikin will always hold a very special place in the discography of the opera, but as a recording it is naturally outclassed by the Philips, which now becomes my outright recommendation.'