Having attended a remarkable concert performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin conducted by Alexander Vedernikov (in Montreal in September, 2003), I hoped to be able to say that with this Ruslan and Lyudmila the conductor had escaped from the death spiral of mediocre recordings that he has been making these days for PentaTone. Alas, I was quickly disenchanted: this release is even worse than the others! Technically the recording (made live in April, 2003) is horrendous–no dynamic range, no lows, no highs. Nor is there any depth or spatial coherence, nothing but a sound that is both flat and diffuse.
Interpretively, the theoretically scholarly return to the original sources to find an authentic text is nothing but a vain quest when all the constituents of the interpretation and its sonic translation are so defective. Thus the overture comes across as enervated and distant, the worst ever recorded, lacking any guidance from the podium (and this is but one example of many). Instrumental deficiencies are numerous and perfectly reflect the performance’s low level of accomplishment: an adequate but banal and unalluring Lyudmila from Ekaterina Morozova; a horrifying, mumbling Ruslan from Taras Shtonda; a marginally acceptable, charmless Gorislava; a hesitant Ratmir from Aleksandra Durseneva (track 8 of the second CD hits rock bottom, equally with respect to the orchestral accompaniments); a small-scale and nasal Finn; and a simply vulgar Farlaf in Valery Gilmanov, who loses all projection when he sings quickly. All of this is absolutely disconcerting, especially when you think that “Bolshoi” means “great!” The only thing great here is the musical headache that listening to this awful set will give you.
