Onegin Takes Center Stage

As the latest step in a long-term, comprehensive project to document, distribute, and archive the University’s rich cultural offerings to a wider audience, Northwestern University Advanced Media Production Studio (NUAMPS), a division of NUIT Academic Technologies (AT), has made the School of Music’s recent production of Eugene Onegin available for public viewing and download.

A classic of the standard operatic repertoire, Eugene Onegin is based on Aleksandr Pushkin’s 1833 novel-in-verse of the same name. Directed by Professor Noel Koran, director of opera at the School of Music, the opera showcases music by Tchaikovsky and a libretto by Konstantin Shilovsky and Tchaikovsky. Media specialists captured the three-act opera in High Definition Video (HDV) on February 23rd, 2006 as part of the collaboration between Northwestern University Advanced Media Production Studio (NUAMPS), a division of NUIT Academic Technologies, and the School of Music to record the school’s three annual opera productions.

As with the recording of The Magic Flute and Threepenny Opera, NUAMPS worked with the School of Music and Prof. Koran from pre-production planning, to execution of video and audio acquisition and editing, to final distribution via multiple channels. The opera was shot in HDV to ensure that the operas’ visual quality will continue to meet the ever-increasing requirements of advancing exhibition techniques.

iPod-compatible videos of The Magic Flute, Threepenny Opera, and Eugene Onegin are available online through Apple’s iTunes Music Store by subscribing to “NUAMPS Projects.” All operas are in the NU Channel 1 Student Television (NUCH1) rotating program lineup through Basic NUTV (http://www.northwestern.edu/nutv), and DVDs of the performances can be checked out from the Marjorie I. Mitchell Multimedia Center at University Library (http://www.library.northwestern.edu/media/).