Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Belfast, 2024)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Belfast, 2024)

NI Opera, 2024

Dominic Limburg, Cameron Menzies, Yuriy Yurchuk, Mary McCabe, Norman Reinhardt, Sarah Richmond, Carolyn Dobbin, Jenny Bourke, Aaron O'Hare, Niall Anderson, Matthew Jeffrey, Seamus Brady, Anne Flanagan, Adam Ashford, Gerard Headley, Alice Johnston, Maeve McGreevy, Sean O'Neill, Mira Renilheiro, Emma Scott

Grand Opera House, Belfast - 17th September 2024

I know I have complained in the past about the Northern Ireland Opera programme being reduced to one fully staged opera a year, but if you are going to do one opera and have already got the usual suspects of Italian opera out of the way (La Bohème, La Traviata, Tosca), now is the time to be a little more adventurous. If you want to introduce the Belfast audience to a glorious work that will still please those who will be less familiar with the opera world (and one opera a year doesn't provide much opportunity), then with a little nod to the glamour of Bridgerton, Downton Abbey and the currently popularity of TV costume dramas to give the audience something familiar to latch onto, you can't do much better than Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece Eugene Onegin.

Taking on a great Russian opera however can't have been an easy decision when the more obvious route would have been Carmen or a Mozart opera, all the more so considering the current ambivalence towards some Russian artists due to the war in Ukraine. A Russian opera however brings it own artistic challenge for a relatively young opera company, singers and orchestra, not least in choosing to present the opera in the original Russian, but Eugene Onegin is worth it, the opera having all the elements to engage an audience in a heartfelt emotional, romantic and human drama. And so it proves to be in its short run of four performances at the Grand Opera House in Belfast. If not quite hitting the full range and dynamic of the work, NI Opera under the direction of Cameron Menzies delivered an impressive account of an exceptionally beautiful work that has all the deep personal engagement of the composer poured into every note.

Incredibly, aside from the role of Onegin, most the other main roles were taken by local artists and there were few weaknesses of any significance in the singing. That's quite an achievement. Usually a more mature singer, preferably of Russian or East European origin, is required for the role of Tatyana, so it's all the more astonishing that a young Northern Irish singer with limited experience of leading soprano roles can handle the demands of the role so impressively. A little more depth to the voice would add to the character, but since the larger part of the opera features Tatyana as a young and inexperienced young woman, Mary McCabe is able to make her character much more convincing. That pays dividends for the opera's final scene when the older Tatyana is assailed by doubts on her re-encounter with Onegin, her assurance crumbling as she reverts back to the emotions and circumstances of her younger self that shaped her life. It's a faultless singing performance, perhaps only let down by a lack of clear direction.

There have been many ways of bringing out the reflective nature of Tatyana’s life experience, her journey from a naive young woman in the country to a mature lady of elegance and outward assurance who nevertheless holds searing memories and past regrets. It's not unusual to see other productions relying on doubles - actors or dancers - to bridge the scope of her enthusiastic youthful bookish idealism into mature acceptance of duty and routine. And indeed, Menzies method of bringing this element out of the opera is to view the events as the revisiting of the past by an elderly lady in a wheelchair in the present day. She remains onstage almost throughout, at least in all the scenes where Tatyana appears, which suggests that it is Tatyana herself. Although she engages with her younger self on one or two occasions, it's hard however to reconcile the time discrepancy between the two periods.

More than that however, it's really not enough to bring the fullness and richness of the emotional range required here, or the complexity of the misplaced or mistimed feelings that exist in the Tatyana/Onegin relationship. Ukrainian baritone Yuriy Yurchuk sang Onegin well, but the direction here also didn't allow much space to explore the character. In the first part of the opera Onegin is somewhat arrogant, aloof and detached, in his relationship with Lensky he is apparently oblivious of any fault - although it's true that Lensky here appears to be unreasonably jealous to the minor social indiscretion of Onegin dancing with his partner - and in the final scenes all his character seems to have precipitously dissolved into him becoming a figure of regret, disappointment and disillusionment, seeking to find a way out of it by trying to return to the past.  

These are challenges that exist in the opera itself, which Tchaikovsky envisioned as seven fairly austere scenes based on Pushkin's verse novel rather than an opera with a cohesive dramatic flow. Nonetheless, what is elided is alluded to and given weight in the huge emotional undercurrent of the music score, and a production can make use of other means to bring those elements out. Set in what looks like an abandoned warehouse of concrete blocks, on one hand the director adheres to the intended austerity of the piece, the costume drama taking place within this environment highlighting the romantic ideal of the elderly woman viewing it from the sidelines. With projection on the back wall of the changing conditions of the seasons contributing to a sense of this being more of an emotional and mental representation than a physical environment, it does succeed in finding it own way of presenting the conflict of romance and tragedy, the painful memories lived afresh within the opera. Just not strongly or convincingly enough for the deeper complexities of the work.

By any standard however, the musical and singing performances gave an impressive account of the work. Aside from the two main leads, Norman Reinhardt’s rather Italianate Lensky was strong and emotionally charged. As Olga, Sarah Richmond was as ever excellent, but again without the direction sufficiently differentiating her nature from her sister Tatyana. Carolyn Dobbin was a strong Madame Larina, making an great impression particularly in her first scene and Jenny Bourke was a sympathetic Filipevna. Well done to Aaron O’Hare for a stand-out performance as a suitably flamboyant Monsieur Triquet. It can be a trivial role, but he brought real character to the part and its place in the opera. Although only appearing at the close of the opera Gremin is not an easy role to sing and usually requires a bass singer to intone the dull and serious but genuinely devoted nature of Tatyana's husband, but baritone Niall Anderson handled it well.

It was such deeper resonance that was missing here, as much in the music and singing as in the direction. There is no getting away from the impact of the key scenes that Tchaikovsky so brilliantly arranged and composed, and the sweeping tug of the melodies and dances under the direction of conductor Dominic Limburg and NI Opera Orchestra concert master Joanne Quigley was superb, but it could definitely have had a little more of the depth and impact that is usually more apparent when you have native Russians in the chorus and singing roles. You can't justifiably criticise anyone for not being Russian however, particularly these days, or NI Opera for the ambition to present such a work under current arts funding restraints.

External links: Northern Ireland Opera

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Vienna, 2020)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Wiener Staatsoper, 2020

Tomáš Hanus, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Liubov Orfenova, Helene Schneiderman,
Nicole Car, Anna Goryachova, Larissa Diadkova, Andrè Schuen, Bogdan Volkov, Dimitry Ivashchenko, Dan Paul Dumitrescu, Mykola Erdyk, Johanna Mertinz

Staatsoper Live - 31 October 2020

The perspective that the present gives us on the past should be one of age and wisdom looking back on the foolish acts of youth, but all to often the view from a comfortable distance is just as untrustworthy, leading us to look back fondly and nostalgically on times that were actually painfully difficult to live through and, for better or worse, character forming. Perspective and the passing of time is very much at the heart of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and that's the focus of Dmitri Tcherniakov's new production for the Vienna State Opera.

Always at his best when directing Russian masterpieces, Dmitri Tcherniakov alerts us to the untrustworthiness of memory and nostalgia right from the outset of this production. There are no peasants and labourers toiling in the fields singing songs that ennoble the nature of working the land. Here in the Vienna production rather we see a large family gathered around a dinner table in a room that is a comforting sea of beige ("a golden dream"), where the guests join in and make fun of Madame Larina's nostalgic reminiscences. The old harvesting songs are also romanticised and sung as a dinner party recital by Tatiana and Olga.

It's a frivolous world, comfortably detached from real world feelings and concerns. Even Lensky's effusive poetry to Olga here seems playful, a fond recognition of the ways of a more innocence age. No doubt the sentiments are genuine, but they are made to look out of place here. Even Madame Larina no longer retains any of the romantic novelistic illusions of her youth. This opening setting proposes diametrically opposed views of the world between the dreamer and the reality, which of course only enforces and emphasises the distance between the impressionable bookish dreamer Tatyana and the aloof, arrogant 'man of the world' Onegin.

Although that delves further into the melancholy of such sentiments expressed in the music than most, it's far from the most original observation to make about Tchaikovsky's masterpiece. The queer interpretation by Krzysztof Warlikowski (Munich 2012), the expansive view of Russian society and culture in Stefan Herheim's production (Amsterdam, 2011), the doubling with dancers in Kasper Holten's production (Royal Opera House, 2013) autumnal moods of light and colour of Robert Carsen (The Met, 2007) all found innovative ways to tap into the many undercurrents that lie within this extraordinary opera. Tcherniakov more recently does seem to rein in indulgences and seem to play a little safer using beige-coloured living-rooms as a way to satirise the middle class, using them as a microcosm of society, but it can still be challenging and appropriate. Here the mood is intensified by the production never leaving the dining room, neither to spend the sleepless night in Tatyana's bedroom, nor even the duel scene.

Evidently then, the more pointed commentary is revealed in other little touches and in the direction of performers, all of them contributing to emphasise the central themes. The utter sincerity of Tatyana's depth of feeling at the conclusion of the letter scene is in heartbreaking contrast to the frivolity of Onegin and all the others around her. It even seems to embody that distinctly paradoxical Russian characteristic of frivolous sincerity and sincere frivolity that lies very much at the heart of the work. Perhaps it's in that character that Tcherniakov dispenses entirely with Monsieur Triquet and instead has Lensky sing the birthday ode to Tatyana (in Russian), the party descending into sheer playful mayhem that is in complete contrast to how Tatyana is feeling. And indeed Lensky.

In this production, it seems that Lensky has an even greater shattering of illusions than Tatyana, or it can certainly seem as such when it is sung and performed with such heartfelt sincerity as it is here by Bogdan Volkov. Lensky's experience proves to be just as critical to the impact and meaning of the work as a whole when it's permitted to be (Warlikowski also for example using the quarrel between him and Onegin as a way of tapping into those deeper sentiments). Here only Tatyana understands how he feels while the others laugh and mock. The duel is no less shocking for taking place in front of all the family and friends in the dining room, reduced to a tussle over a shotgun that accidentally goes off. The impact is every bit as tragic and devastating as it ought to be in the context of this highly charged romantic masterwork.

Considered against Lensky and Tatyana, Onegin is reduced to a mockery in the opera named after him. His return to society in Act III and his self-important tale of his difficult years is met with icy disdain and casual dismissal at the high society function in another elegant dining room, this one a blaze of rich red and formality compared to the easy golden nostalgia of the Larin estate dining room. Onegin finds himself unwelcome, not some tragic romantic figure as he is in Deborah Warner's somewhat misguided 2013 Met production, and certainly not the one he thinks he is. The Russian society here is changed too, now one of ostentatious wealth where outsiders are not made comfortable, detached from their roots and the past.

Tomáš Hanus carried much of Tchaikovsky's romantic melancholy and Russian-ness in his conducting and it was played well; a little bit broad in its sweep I felt, but the music has a lot to cover. Onegin is an inconstant man, difficult to really grasp, particularly when he is played as someone superficial and unsympathetic here. André Schuen never really convinces of any sincerity but that seems to be what Tcherniakov is aiming for here. It's only at the conclusion that he lets go and reveals or becomes aware of his true feelings and expresses everything of the ignominy of a rejected lover. It put one in mind at this time of the level of self-delusion turning to realisation of a populist US President who can't quite believe that he has been rejected by an electorate who used to hang on his every word and tweet. As mentioned earlier, Bogdan Volkov raises Lensky to a new level of importance in this opera with a heartfelt performance that is in complete contrast to Onegin.

The role of Tatyana is a difficult one, needing a singer capable of covering the range of naive youth with a more reflective mature experience. And yet, do we ever really change? Is Tatyana not the same, even after the passing of years? Doesn't she prove to be still capable of making a foolish mistake, still capable of following her heart, following a self-destructive urge and throw caution to the wind. Is she not Russian? No one is immune to such feelings at any age, as Prince Gremlin also testifies in "All men surrender to love's power". Tcherniakov recognises and so does Nicole Car, presenting a consistent vision of the romantic that lies at the heart of anyone who has seen, understood and been moved by the extraordinary beauty and sadness of life through love as its portrayed in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.

Links: Vienna State Opera, Wiener Staatsoper Live

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Buxton, 2019)

Pyotr Illiych Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Buxton, 2019)

Buxton International Festival, 2019

Adrian Kelly, Jamie Manton, Shelley Jackson, Angharad Lyddon, David Webb, George Humphreys, Gaynor Keeble, Ceri Williams, Joshua Bloom, Joe Doody, Christopher Cull, Phil Wilcox

Buxton Opera House - 10th July 2019

The Buxton Festival usually concentrates on presenting rarely heard works, and for their 40th anniversary two or three works that you are unlikely to see performed anywhere else, and a good bit of imagination and variety in the programming too. A work like Eugene Onegin wouldn't normally fit on the bill, but if you are going to put on a more familiar opera to appeal to a wider audience then Tchaikovsky's undisputed masterpiece is a good choice. Buxton put on a fabulous production too, one that didn't strive to impose any extravagant reinterpretation, but rather focussed on the mood and undercurrents that give the work its extraordinary character.

There are any number of ways of portraying that underlying character of doomed romance (not least Tchaikovsky's own horrendous experience of it) or the underlying Russian traits in Pushkin's hugely important work of Russian literature. Buxton's production however isn't interested in going for any deep Stefan Herheim or Krzysztof Warlikowski explorations and deconstructions of the work, but on first glance Justin Nardella's set designs did at least seem to reference Robert Carsen's NY Met production. With a stage strewn with autumnal leaves and back screen glowing with colours, the focus seems to be on the light and the seasons, factors that unquestionably exert an enormous influence on the work.

The luminous back panel might change colour to reflect the seasons and moods, turning green when Lensky quarrels with Onegin in jealousy over his perceived flirtation with Olga, wintry white while they turn up for their duel, and blood red when Lensky is killed, but Buxton's production has more to it than just colour coding and it recognises that there is more to Tchaikovsky's score than fluctuations of mood. There's another dominant character that suffuses the whole work and that's its dark melancholic reflection on romance and the twists of fate and time that swirl people in and out of each other's lives, exerting a huge tug that can disrupt the larger patterns of life and emotional stability.

Or, to put that force into more recognisable terms, it's the power of love, but it's wrong to just see Eugene Onegin as a tragic romantic melodrama or indeed to put the emphasis just on the romance. It is surely one of the most heartrending tragi-romantic works you can imagine, and only Massenet's Werther comes close. Actually Massenet's opera is perhaps the closest comparable work for how it is also tied to the seasons, to love out of time with the seasons. Tatyana and Onegin's love has the potential to be boundless, a love like no other, but perhaps all love has that potential were we not human and subject to other forces, to time, to our own weaknesses, to our own lack of self-awareness and inability to foresee what is ahead, or perhaps allow that potential to be stifled by looking too far ahead in anticipation. Life too has its own rhythms that we only see in retrospect.

Quite how you put that into music - along with all the momentous character of Pushkin's work - is something only the genius and personal experience of Tchaikovsky could have done without unnecessary explanation or elaboration, but those characteristics certainly arose out of the elegant and well-performed Buxton production. Somehow Jamie Manton's direction managed to capture all these moods tied into seasons, the sense of melancholic reflection, the fatality of a doomed romance and the tides of time all within its design and performances. In contrast to the Robert Carsen light-box production, the tone of Justin Nardella's set design is actually very dark, the Larin house all black walls and floor, with mirrors when indoors that only reflected the darkness inward.

With period costumes, it managed to look both elegant and austere, elegant in terms of the outward manners, the means by which characters want to present themselves, while the world around them is much less controllable. Those outside factors are depicted in other ways, Tatyana feeling the presence of dark silent figures watching, pressing in on her, closing her down, Onegin faced with a mirror of self-reflection that he can't see past. With extras and chorus play their part, including sweepers who pushed the leaves and the snow past in choreographed rhythms, all of this feeding into an expression of vast forces at work and clashing in the opera.

Of course nowhere is that more effective than in the music itself. I don't think the Northern Symphony Orchestra's playing was the most sweepingly lush and romantic version of Eugene Onegin I've heard, but while it is nice to hear the glorious elegance of Tchaikovsky's beautiful melancholic melodies and themes, conductor Adrian Kelly made the case that there should be a little tug or barb of rawness behind them. The test of the effectiveness of this is in how the music works hand-in-hand with the production to stir up the deepest feelings in the work that cannot be expressed in words alone. Truly Tchaikovsky finds the heart of Pushkin's narrative and character that connects on a more direct emotional level with the audience.

If there are any caveats to be applied to the production, it's in the understandable necessity to sing the work in English. If you can't get Russian singers or singers experienced in singing Russian, it can be difficult to get the necessary expression in Eugene Onegin. English is not a perfect match, no matter how good the translation and its fitting to the cadences of the music, but on the other hand, it was good to be able to listen and see the detail that the cast brought to performances without the distraction of surtitles. Perhaps surtitles were more necessary for the quartets, ensembles and choruses, but even there the overlapping expressions are conveyed more by the delivery and harmony than what is said in the words.

Even with the libretto translated a little stiffly in English, the singing was excellent. The main roles were handled exceptionally well by Shelley Jackson and George Humphreys above and beyond the vocal delivery. You must feel sympathy for both Tatyana and Onegin. It's not just naive young girl meeting aloof arrogant self-obsessed man, but there is great depth to both, the tragedy being that they both come to recognise this at times when it's too late to do anything about it. The performances however were excellent right across the board, Angharad Lyddon's Olga and David Webb's Lensky bringing another essential character and tone to the work, Gaynor Keeble's Larina and Ceri Williams's Filipyevena bringing another vital perspective on how love is ignited and dies as time and life exert other forces and pressures on it. This was consequently a beautifully moody Eugene Onegin that stirred deeply.

Links: Buxton International Festival

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Belfast, 2018)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Scottish Opera, 2018

Stuart Stratford, Oliver Mears, Samuel Dale Johnson, Natalya Romaniw, Peter Auty, Sioned Gwen Davies, Alison Kettlewell, Anne-Marie Owens, Graeme Broadbent, Christopher Gillett, Alexey Gusev, James Platt, Matthew Kimble

Grand Opera House, Belfast - 28 June 2018

Pushkin's Eugene Onegin has been praised as "an encyclopaedia of Russian life" but it's one of those works that manages to encapsulate the characteristics and behaviours of a nation within a story of the intimate sadness and tragic fate that life holds in store for many of us. Pushkin wrote his own tragic Russian story, killed in a duel over a romantic dispute like Lensky in his great masterpiece, and Tchaikovsky poured his own personal, marital and emotional struggles into his work here, and the personal input of both creators can be deeply felt in Eugene Onegin.

It's not much to ask to have that reflected and expect to feel deeply moved by a performance of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and while it rarely fails to hit the mark, there are many ways of approaching the subject. At one extreme you can have Stefan Herheim turning the work indeed into "an encyclopaedia of Russian life" complete with cosmonauts, Red Army troops and a dancing bear taking it right up to the present day, making the point that the Russian character - as well as the essential human character - remains largely unchanged. At the other minimalist extreme, Robert Carsen ties the emotional impact of the work and the course of a life to the colours of the seasons. Others, such as Krzysztof Warlikowski, have focussed on how much of Tchaikovsky's life and troubled sexual identity can be clearly mapped onto the characters in the story.

Oliver Mears, the current artistic director of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and former director of NI Opera, makes a return visit with his Scottish Opera production of Eugene Onegin and doesn't attempt anything quite as radical as the above examples, but in another way it taps into the idea of simple lives caught up in something greater. What it does manage to do is grasp that sense of the scope of life and love, of the personal and intimate placed within the greater context of life, memory and the passing of time; the madness and insensitivity of youth that can have an impact that resonates through a whole life and that we can only grasp the enormity of it when it's far too late to change anything.

Mears employs a simple enough device to get this across, having the silent figure of an elderly Tatyana recall and rewatch a significant event in her youth that would forever determine its future direction, all of it taking place in a single room of fading memory. I was immediately resistant to the idea, since the ending in Tchaikovsky's opera - and the melancholic tone of the work throughout - already places the work into the context of memory and the passing of time. Tatyana's rejection of the repentant Onegin at the end of the opera, even though she is clearly in love with him, is an immensely powerful conclusion that could hardly be delivered in a more effective manner with the addition of another rejection of Tatyana finally tearing up the letter and forever setting the matter to rest.

On the other hand it's quite plausible that the matter between Tatyana and Onegin might certainly be over, but both will still carry the regret for the rest of their lives. If it doesn't make the conclusion any more devastating, it succeeds in driving the point home, particularly as Stuart Stratford and the Scottish Opera Orchestra deliver the final blows mercilessly after succeeding in holding the audience in a state of romantic melancholy for the larger part of the performance, conserving those energies for the other real moments of emotional impact; in Onegin's rejection of Tatyana's love letter and in the tragic and foolhardy death of Lensky in the duel.

There are other ways of showing how we can end up paying for the folly of youth later in life, but most obviously it's Onegin who carries this burden. One of the best ways I've seen this done is in the 2013 Royal Opera House production, where Onegin is led during the Polonaise on a dance through a constant progression of women that gradually wears him down with the passing of the years. It leaves him in the perfect state to have his eyes opened to the opportunities of real love and stability in his life that have been lost. Interestingly, with an elderly Tatyana coming back to a dusty, decaying Larin mansion, once filled with life, Mears's direction makes you consider everything else that has been lost over time. For the first time really the Lensky's tragedy carried through for me, and I wondered what had become of Olga and the direction her life subsequently must have taken. Would Lensky's death have stayed with her or would the memory have faded with time and the other needs of life?

It's essential that, like Pushkin and Tchaikovsky, the reader or listener identify with the characters in the story and see their lives in that kind of context; Onegin as tragedy plus time. By casting the net of time further - Herheim's production certainly does this, and so too does Kasper Holten's doubling of the older Tatyana and Onegin looking back on their younger counterparts - Oliver Mears captures that sense of the work not so much as an encyclopaedia of Russian life, but just an encyclopaedia of life. There are many perspectives you can place on Eugene Onegin, but the most important one is what the individual listener and spectator brings to it; and the passing of time, the changes it brings and the regrets that still sting are something that everyone can relate to.

That's not to say that the viewer has to do all the work. Far from it. While the perspective Oliver Mears introduces sets the work in a wider context, Stuart Stratford and the Scottish Opera Orchestra permit the listener to feel the heat of life and the complexity of sentiments associated with it in every note of Tchaikovsky's beautiful melodies and dances. The singing and characterisation are critical however, particularly for Tatyana and Onegin, and the casting was nigh on perfect here. Natalya Romaniw was simply stunning. If she was a little blank and cool in her acting, frozen mortification works well for Tatyana, and all the yearning was there in a superbly sung performance. She had a perfect counterfoil in Samuel Dale Johnson's Onegin, initially aloof (making an entrance on a live horse!) and little by little falling prey to his own personality flaws. There were certainly no flaws in his singing. The quality of singing and characterisation of Olga and Lensky by Sioned Gwen Davies and Peter Auty was evident in how much you cared about their fates.

Eugene Onegin can sometimes risk being a little aloof and cool in its mannerisms of detachment if the music and singing aren't all perfectly aligned to bring out the true sentiments. That necessarily goes beyond the principals, the larger picture of life and the impact of time extending to the supporting characters, from Madame Larina and the nurse Filippyevna's views and life experiences, to Prince Gremin's reflections on married life and love later in life. The chorus, the dancers, also all contribute to the sense of life viewed comprehensively in all its richness, but with an underlying melancholy for the impact of that time exerts on it. Everything that is great about Eugene Onegin comes together perfectly in this Scottish Opera production.

Links: Scottish Opera

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Komische Berlin, 2016 - Webcast)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Komische Oper Berlin, 2016

Henrik Nánási, Barrie Kosky, Günter Papendell, Asmik Grigorian, Karolina Gumos, Aleš Briscein, Christiane Oertel, Alexey Antonov, Margarita Nekrasova, Yakov Strizhak, Christoph Späth

Opera Platform - 31 January 2016

Looked at it dispassionately the plot of Eugene Onegin is a slight one, but Tchaikovsky's beautiful opera is by no means a work to view dispassionately. Musically and lyrically its themes are much deeper and resonant and it's much more than a story of unrequited love, which is a commonplace episode that typically plays a small part in many of the great works of Russian literature (as does the obligatory duel scene). Even if Eugene Onegin holds this as the emotional core of the work, with the clever structural twist of the role of the unrequited lover being reversed later in the work and the whole thing even revolving around a duel centrepiece, the themes of the opera can be seen in a broader view to be just as much about time and perspective.

That also sounds like a rather 'dispassionate' way to view one of the most beautiful and lyrical works in Russian music and literature, and of course, its brilliance lies in Tchaikovsky's own very personal and sensitive response to the themes Pushkin explores in the work. Eugene Onegin is not as straightforward then as being a work about the innocence of youth that becomes older and wiser through experience, it's more about how time itself can transform feelings. Those feelings and the shared experience of Tatyana and Onegin during the time of their meeting on the Larin country estate and the tragic transform over time in unexpected ways, but at the heart there is a strong ring of truth to them.

The transformation that takes place in the intervening years is by no means a straightforward progression, and it would be a mistake to tie Eugene Onegin down to direct cause and effect. Tchaikovsky weaves many other elements and colourful scenes that are seemingly there to enliven the otherwise melancholic tone of torment and regret that dominates, as well as help fill out the thin plot of the opera, but all of them contribute to the greater themes of the work. Various aspects and thematic connections can be drawn out just as much from Lensky and Olga, as well as nurse Filippyevna's account of her arranged marriage at the age of thirteen that deepened into something warm and loving over time.

The place of men and women in society, the pressures to conform to social expectations as well as romantic ideals; all of these issues contribute to a minor incident that is nonetheless of vast significance to Tatyana and later Onegin - even if the relative importance of what it means tragically never coincides within both of them at the same time. "Happiness was once so near, so near!". There is something inherently and vitally Russian about that, something that is at the same time both passionate in the exploration and expression of one's deeper nature, yet also dispassionate in its abandonment to fate and the course it will set them upon. This idea of huge forces being set into motion by an outwardly minor matter is something that must be captured in any successful stage presentation of the work.

In line with the nature of the work itself, there are many ways to balance and blend those themes. It can be as simple and austere as Robert Carson's production, letting the light and the music express everything that isn't brought out on the surface, or you can throw everything up there on the stage in an all-encompassing Stefan Herheim manner and let the music hold the true course of the sentiments. With Barrie Kosky at the Komische Oper in Berlin it could go either way, but you can at least be sure that it is probably going to be colourful and elaborate. That certainly is the impression you get at the start of Act I, where a whole hyper-realistic chunk of the Russian countryside appears to be deposited right up there on the stage.

This is not however the kind of kitsch forest scene that you will find for example in Otto Schenk's The Cunning Little Vixen. It's not that Kosky is adverse to a bit of kitsch and camp when it's appropriate, but in the case of Eugene Onegin the set serves that deeper purpose of the work. The single forest scene, the lump of Russian countryside that remains in place throughout most of the opera, reflects the importance of the location and of nature in the work. Without getting too bogged down in period detail, which isn't as important as the broader themes, it does however also suggest memories of the past - on how the golden days of youth are reflected upon in moments of crisis. Even when we are in a ballroom in the final scene of the opera, the rough grass that serves as a carpet remains there as a reminder that the past never leaves us.

Kosky of course pays just as much attention to the human drama as the broader Russian themes of the work and its considerations in regards to time and memory. The human emotions are not so much conflated with or inflated by their proximity to the Russian landscape, as much as given the vast space they need to be fully expressed. Tchaikovsky's High Romanticism isn't the same as Debussy's Expressionism, but a stage production is capable of highlighting these human sentiments in terms of light, mood and nature. Kosky's production uses shadow and light, uses the trees, sunlight and moonlight not so much to heighten drama, as much as connect human feelings with nature; relating those features to the surge of excitement, anxiety, melancholy that Tchaikovsky pours into the melodies of the score.

Playing to the human sentiments, the actions and behaviour of each and every one of the characters touches on the essence of their nature in a way that, for example, Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw did not in their Met production when the inner truth of the work was betrayed for the sake of stage drama. The casting helps here, the Komische's production benefitting from a relatively young cast who prove to be quite capable of the dramatic and the singing challenges that the work presents. All of them are tested in passages, but the lyrical beauty of the singing and what it reveals about the characters is handled wonderfully. The Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian in particular is rivetting as Tatjana, her singing and the emotional force behind it impressive; Günter Papendell is a less brusque and a softer Onegin than you usually find, but it works well with the reading here.

There are no major deviations in this production away from the familiar trajectory of the plot and characterisation, but Kosky introduces little revealing touches that present an alternative or more ambiguous way of looking at the situation. Here, for example, you can feel some sympathy for Onegin, not disdain for his arrogance and aloofness. More so than Tatyana, he's the one who comes across as naive in believing he knows it all when he rejects her written declaration of love. Even Tatyana, in their final scene together, recognises that Onegin behaved honourably towards her and didn't take advantage of a young vulnerable country girl. The handling of the duel is also important and Kosky's choice to keep it off-stage works well. Onegin's horror for what has occurred is directed straight afterwards towards Tatyana who has turns up on the scene, making the kind of impact that is necessary for what follows.

What follows of course isn't just a matter of role-reversal. The past still has a hold over Tatyana, who is not indifferent to Onegin, but time has separated them in a way that is impossible to recover. Kosky's production and the direction of the performances captures this with all the ambiguity of feeling that the desperate struggle of the final scene requires. Most productions at the Komische are in German language, I believe, but the decision to keep Yevgeniy Onegin in Russian (even Monsieur Triquet's song is in Russian, which I think is the first time I've heard it sung in anything but French) is an essential element in keeping the whole production as authentic as possible. The fine performance of the orchestra under the Henrik Nánási is another vital component that the Komische seem to get perfectly right, with the chorus also meeting every expectation.


Links: Opera Platform, Komische Oper

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2013

Valery Gergiev, Deborah Warner, Fiona Shaw, Anna Netrebko, Mariusz Kwiecień, Oksana Volkova, Piotr Beczala, Elena Zaremba, Larissa Diadkova, John Graham-Hall, Alexei Tanovitski, David Crawford, Richard Bernstein

The Met: Live in HD - 5th October 2013

No matter how many times the story is told, no matter how simple that story seems to be on the surface, there always seems to be something new you can draw out of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, a fact that testifies to its reputation as being a supreme work of art. The artistry of the opera was in evidence in some aspects of the Met's new 2013 production season opener - broadcast live in HD to cinemas across the world - but in others it didn't quite live up to the high expectations we've come to expect from Tchaikovsky's masterpiece or the strengths in it that have been recognised in other recent productions.

Musically, everything was in place with Valery Gergiev drawing a muscular performance out of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, sensitive to the distinctly Russian rhythms and tones of the work. Grandly romantic and at the same time intimate, any sense of sentimentality or wishy-washiness would be fatal to the work (particularly in this production), but there wasn't a trace of it here. As if to emphasise this robust performance, the Met's chorus were also in fine voice, bringing their presence to bear on each of the scenes where they appear, alerting the viewer to the fact that they are there for more than just mere decoration, but are an integral part of the Russian character of the work and the society.

What was also apparent when conducted in this way is how much the characters develop throughout Eugene Onegin and how the story - which on the surface is simple enough - develops in accordance with the growth of each of the characters. Circumstances force each of the main characters - Tatiana, Onegin and Lenski - to reflect on their situation at various points, principally in their monologues, which they come out from as different people. For Tatiana, it's the crushing humiliation of Onegin's response to her love letter in Act I, for Lenski it's the reflection on the golden days of his youth as he faces death in a duel in Act II, and for Onegin it all comes much too late in Act III. In a very Russian way however, all of the characters feel compelled to play out their fates, Tatiana as much as Onegin, already aware as soon as she places pen to paper that she's writing her future one way or the other.

Like the characters, the opera also grows and accumulates greater force, meaning and significance as it reaches each of those points and builds towards its devastating conclusion. Unfortunately, the Met's production by Deborah Warner, directed here by Fiona Shaw, seemed determined to undercut each of those important three act moments with ill-advised physical contact between the characters, when they should really be alone in their own world. Act I bewilderingly ended with Onegin kissing Tatiana after rejecting her, Act II featured an unlikely brotherly embrace between the two combatants of a duel of honour, and Act III climaxed with a passionately reciprocated kiss from Tatiana after she deals the defeated Onegin his fatal blow. No, no and no. None of it made any sense in terms of the drama or in terms of what the music is expressing.

Aside from these appalling missteps, there wasn't much to recommend in the production as a whole either. Tom Pye's sets were functional and representational of the Larin estate and Gremin ballroom in St Petersberg. The Polonaise and the Ecossaise that have been put to good use in other productions as connecting interludes for the passage of years between the duel scene and Onegin's return many years later to St Petersberg, were wasted here as mere background dance music to the ball in Act III. Compared to recent productions of the opera from Kasper Holten's dancers at the Royal Opera House, Stefan Herheim's huge tapestry of Russian life in the Amsterdam production, Krzysztof Warlikowski's queer reading of the work for Munich or indeed the Met's previous version employing Robert Carsen's seasonal light-box, this was a very drab and uninspired production that had neither the epic qualities nor the intimacy that the work should achieve.

With some minor or perhaps not so minor reservations, the singing however almost made it all worthwhile. It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that the Met's opening production was almost entirely constructed to be a showpiece (yet again) for Anna Netrebko, and if the production didn't entirely live up to expectations, the same can't be said about Netrebko. The Russian soprano has been taking some good advice, or perhaps just letting her own voice tell her when it was ready to leave behind the bel canto roles and start to tackle some of the darker dramatic repertoire. The combination of a youthful innocent appearance with maturity of voice and expression for Tatiana is a difficult balance to achieve in one singer but Anna Netrebko has it all in looks, in voice and in acting ability, her burnished dark timbre soaring through those intensely dramatic moments with the sincerity of feeling that the role needs.

Despite the billing, this was no diva star-turn either, and Netrebko gave as much in her performance to all those sharing the stage with her. Some of them however weren't quite up to her stature, and unfortunately for the success of the production as a whole, that includes Mariusz Kwiecień's Onegin. There was little wrong with his singing, Kwiecień clearly a strong performer who is more than capable for the role, but he just didn't have the personality or character to be an Onegin opposite Anna Netrebko. I don't think the confused direction did him any favours either.  Elsewhere however, the singing performances were just superb.  Piotr Beczala is becoming a house favourite at the Met, and deservedly so. Whether he has great personality of his own or not, he's a fine singer in the classic tenor mould and capable of great beauty in his expression, bringing the necessary quality to those key emotional moments and famous arias. For Lenski, that's 'Kuda, kuda vï udalilis', and Beczala's delivery of it was heartfelt and beautiful.

Oksana Volkova was an impressive Olga and there were even solid, shining contributions from Elena Zaremba's Madame Larina and from Larissa Diadkova as Filippyevna. John Graham-Hall's Monsieur Triquet was however just bewildering, his role overworked in the context of the opera to little real effect. Sadly, it was this kind of misplaced emphasis that contributed to the imbalance between the work, the music and the dramatic presentation of its real human qualities. Combined with the lack of any real insight or ideas this Eugene Onegin was far from being totally satisfactory, but all the same there was nothing here to take the shine off Anna Netrebko's impressive venture into the new territory and future greatness.

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Royal Opera House, 2013

Robin Ticciati, Kasper Holten, Simon Keenlyside, Krassimira Stoyanova, Pavol Breslik, Elena Maximova, Peter Rose, Diana Montague, Vigdis Hentze Olsen, Kathleen Wilkinson, Elliot Goldie, Thom Rackett, Christophe Mortagne, Michel De Souza, Jihoon Kim, Luke Price

Opus Arte - Blu-ray


The very nature of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin is one that often makes it difficult to cast and present. The opera is all about the arrogance, impetuosity and naivety of youth seen refracted through a lifetime of regret. As such, it has the near impossible task of needing performers capable of expressing both youthful idealism and the regret that comes with experience in the same person and - as if that wasn't difficult enough - express both positions almost simultaneously. Tchaikovsky's remarkable highly romantic musical score is able to do that, but finding singers who have the exact balance of youth and experience needed to express and actually sing the challenging roles is rather more difficult.

If it were a film, it would simply be a matter of just casting younger actors to play the youthful roles and then bring in experienced stars to play their older counterparts. In the opera house it's not possible - or at least not common - to cast in this way, and certainly not for roles like those in Eugene Onegin that have very specific singing and continuity demands.  For the Royal Opera House production, Kasper Holten has opted for using doubles for Onegin and Tatyana, employing dancers to play their younger selves, and having them both on the stage together in order to allow those interlocking sentiments of youth and experience to play out simultaneously in reflection.  As a response to the themes and the actual music itself it's a valid idea, but it's one that is rather more difficult to pull off theatrically.

It's not as if this kind of cast needs the additional dramatic support. Krassimira Stoyanova in particular is just phenomenal, delivering a sensitive and deeply nuanced performance that works well with the concept. When you see the youthful idealism and romanticism embodied in the expressions and the fluid movements of dancer Vigdis Hentze Olsen during Stoyanova's moving account of the letter scene - the older Tatyana regretful of her younger counterpart's painful naivety - it does actually enhance the scene and reflect those contradictory sentiments. Simon Keenlyside is a marvellous actor as well as a fine singer in this role, but the look of nervous excitement on the young Onegin (Thom Rackett) as he picks up a duelling pistol, oblivious to the reality of what he is about to do, while the older Onegin looks on with painful regret and unable to avert the disaster, is also justified and well handled. The death of Lensky, leaving Pavol Breslik lying there at the front of the stage through the remainder of the opera, doesn't work quite so well. The dead branch that he symbolically drags onto the stage would have been enough on its own.

Any such reservations however are few and minor when taken alongside the evident consideration behind the directorial choices elsewhere in this Eugene Onegin. The Polonaise is more than just a beautiful interlude here, throwing Keenlyside's Onegin with abandon into the midst of swirling ballet dancers that he attempts to grasp but is unable to hold. Tainted by his past and his behaviour, it seems like everything he touches just dies in his hands. Mia Stensgaard's set - a framing set of doors, opened or closed as necessary, with suitable backgrounds, colouration and lighting that enhances the moods - is also highly effective in establishing a consistent look and feel for the work. Tchaikovsky's score is superbly performed by the orchestra of the Royal Opera House under Robin Ticciati, who recognises its majestic romanticism but also its aching intimacy.

The colours and tones of the production design come over well on the Blu-ray, as does the music and singing. In addition to an optional introduction and interval feature, Kasper Holten provides a full length director's commentary, which is uncommon on an opera BD. I don't think the production needs explaining, but considering the unwarranted criticism the production received when shown at Covent Garden, the director clearly feels the need to clarify his intentions.  Perhaps this is another case like the ROH Robert le Diable, which may indeed not have worked in the theatre, but its qualities can better be appreciated in close-up on film. The booklet contains a lovely insightful essay on the work itself by Marina Frolova-Walker that considers how Tchaikovsky's music expresses the content. Subtitles on the Blu-ray disc are English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean.

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Royal Opera House, 2013

Robin Ticciati, Kasper Holten, Simon Keenlyside, Krassimira Stoyanova, Pavol Breslik, Elena Maximova, Peter Rose, Diana Montague, Vigdis Hentze Olsen, Kathleen Wilkinson, Elliot Goldie, Thom Rackett, Christophe Mortagne, Michel De Souza, Jihoon Kim, Luke Price

Royal Opera House Cinema Season Live, 20th February 2013

The very nature of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin is one that often makes it difficult to cast and present.  The opera is all about the arrogance, impetuosity and naivety of youth seen refracted through a lifetime of regret.  As such, it has the near impossible task of needing its performers to be able to express both youthful idealism and the regret that comes with experience through same person and - just to make it more difficult - express both positions almost simultaneously.  Tchaikovsky's remarkable highly romantic musical score is able to do that, but finding singers who have the exact balance of youth and experience needed to express and actually sing the challenging roles is rather more difficult to achieve.

If it were a film, it would simply be a matter of just casting younger actors to play the youthful roles in Eugene Onegin and then bring in experienced stars to play their older counterparts.  In the opera house it's not possible - or at least not common - to cast in this way, and certainly not for roles like those in Eugene Onegin that have very specific singing and continuity demands.  Certainly in the case of the young romantic and bookish 16-year old Tatyana, the director has the choice only of casting a younger singer who looks credible in the role but who may not be able to meet the extremely difficult singing demands, or else sacrifice credibility for a singer with the voice, maturity and the experience to make it work musically.  In the days of High Definition broadcasts, the chances are that the director will opt for the former (as in the case of Krzysztof Warlikowski's 2012 Bavarian State Opera production with Ekaterina Scherbachenko), when the latter is what the work really needs.  There is however another way, a way explored by Norwegian director Stefan Herheim for example in the 2011 production for De Nederlandse Opera, but it involves the kind of directorial playing around with the essential elements and timeline of the work that some find intrusive in what ought to be a stripped-back and intimate work.

Directing the Royal Opera House's new production, and clearly focussing on those essential themes of love and regret, Kasper Holten has opted for an approach similar to Stefan Herheim, using doubles for Onegin and Tatyana - dancers who enact their younger selves - and having them both on the stage together in order to allow both those interlocking sentiments to play out simultaneously.  As a response to the themes and the actual music itself it's a valid idea, but it's one that is rather more difficult to pull off theatrically.  Holten's direction, it has to be said, is rather less convoluted than Herheim's all-encompassing approach that takes in aspects of the Russian temperament revealed in the work across the ages, and in that respect the Royal Opera House production works quite well while at the same time being relatively more faithful to the intentions of the composer.  One can't help but wishing however that the director (both Herheim and Holten) would just put their trust in the singer when they a Tatyana as accomplished as Krassimira Stoyanova who is capable of delivering such a sensitive and deeply nuanced performance as she does here.

And not just Stoyanova.  The Royal Opera House's production benefitted from the casting and terrific performances of Simon Keenlyside and Pavol Breslik as Onegin and Lensky.  Both played these roles opposite each other in last year's Bayerische Staatsoper production and were marvellous there.  Here, unconstrained by the Krzysztof Warlikowski's attempts to bring out a gay subtext in their relationship (attempts it has to be said that were largely successful and certainly relevant to the composer's own personal circumstances), they were free to concentrate on those expressions of deep emotional wounding and eternal regret.  The title of the interval feature 'Love and Regret' describes Kasper Holten's focus for this production, and he couldn't have been better assisted in getting this across than the exceptional, nuanced and deeply moving performances from the cast or from the superb account of Tchaikovsky's majestic score from the Royal Opera House orchestra superbly conducted by Robin Ticciati.

A performance of Eugene Onegin perhaps doesn't need anything more than that, but there were more than a few other beautiful little touches that validated the director's approach.  When you see the youthful idealism and romanticism embodied in the expressions and the fluid movements of dancer Vigdis Hentze Olsen during Stoyanova's moving account of the letter scene - the older Tatyana regretful of her younger counterpart's painful naivety - it does actually enhance the scene and reflect those simultaneous contradictory sentiments.  Keenlyside is a marvellous actor as well as a fine singer in this role, but the look of nervous excitement on the young Onegin (Thom Rackett) as he picks up a duelling pistol, oblivious to the reality of what he is about to do, while the older Onegin looks on with painful regret, unable to avert the disaster, is also justified and well handled.  The death of Lensky, leaving Pavol Breslik lying there at the front of the stage through the remainder of the opera, doesn't work quite so well.  The dead branch that he symbolically drags onto the stage would have been enough on its own.

Any such reservations however are few and minor when taken alongside the evident consideration behind the directorial choices elsewhere in this Eugene Onegin.  The Polonaise was more than just a beautiful interlude, but threw Keenlyside's Onegin with abandon into the midst of swirling ballet dancers that he would attempt to grasp but be unable to hold.  Tainted by his past and his behaviour, it seemed like everything he touched would just die in his hands.  Mia Stensgaard's set - a framing set of doors, opened or closed as necessary, with suitable backgrounds and lighting - was also highly effective in establishing a consistent look and feel for the work.  The role of the chorus - again often neglected for their dramatic contribution in favour of providing "folk" colour - were recognised here as being the social context of the work.  The Royal Opera House have been criticised, with some justification, for a lack of adventure in their recent programming of revivals and some failed or misguided experiments (Rusalka, Robert le Diable), but when they bring together a strong cast for a thoughtful account of a major work like the 2011 Tosca or this year's Eugene Onegin, they are simply unbeatable.

Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, 2012

Pietari Inkinen, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Heike Grötzinger, Ekaterina Scherbachenko, Alisa Kolosova, Elena Zilio, Simon Keenlyside, Pavol Breslik, Ain Anger, Ulrich Reß

Live Internet Streaming, 25 March 2012

The manner in which elements of Eugene Onegin relate closely to the circumstances of Tchaikovsky’s own life have often been remarked upon, and it undoubtedly contributes to the deep emotional and romantic sweep of the opera, so it’s surprising that – to my knowledge at least – the unspoken subtext within the work hasn’t really been brought out explicitly before in any modern production.

That subtext is, of course, related to Tchaikovsky’s struggle with his homosexuality. At the same time that the composer was writing Eugene Onegin, he had himself started a correspondence with the patron of many of his works, Nadezhda von Meck, an intimate relationship that held a certain awkwardness since the two of them were reluctant to meet each other in person. In May 1877, Tchaikovsky also received a love letter from a pupil at the Moscow Conservatory, Antonina Milyukova. Believing that destiny was in some way playing a hand, and that marriage would help him deny his homosexuality, Tchaikovsky ill-advisedly married Milyukova in July 1877, and immediately regretted the decision. The marriage was a complete failure and led to a mental breakdown and attempted suicide on the part of the composer.

In the opera that Tchaikovsky was writing at the same time, Eugene Onegin, based on the verse novel by Alexander Pushkin, Onegin famously receives a gushing letter from a devoted admirer, Tatyana, a young, bookish, innocent, romantic girl living on a country estate who immediately falls in love with the handsome visitor introduced by their neighbour Lensky. Cruelly rejecting her declaration of love, Onegin claims that he’s not cut out for marriage, cannot bear the idea of being tied down when he is young and when there are so many other options to explore, certain that any marriage between them would inevitably become dull and routine.

There would have undoubtedly been some identification on the part of Tchaikovsky with this situation, which certainly at least contributes to the lush romanticism of the score, so it’s not too much of a stretch to consider that Onegin may well have similarly rejected the young girl because he is gay and that, at the end when he comes to regret his callous dismissal of Tatyana after a life of empty and purposeless abandon, it’s possible to see something of the composer’s own dilemma, hoping unrealistically and impossibly for the security of a marriage relationship that would be more acceptable to society.

Actually, having made the parallel and having watched the Bavarian State Opera’s attempt to put something similar across on the stage, I can see why there’s a reluctance to characterise Eugene Onegin as a gay man. It takes some nerve to update a classic work in this way, altering the sexual orientation of the main character in one of the most romantic works ever written, no matter how closely it mirrors the actual real-life circumstances of the composer. As a subtext, it’s certainly something interesting to keep in mind, but it’s a bit more difficult to make it work convincingly on the stage. Accordingly, there’s a sense that while the director might like to make more of the idea, there’s undoubtedly a need to tread carefully with the material at the same time. So in some respects, while there is a feeling that there is some holding back from taking these ideas too far, even what there is here in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production is more than controversial enough.

Rather delightfully, the production is set in the 1970s, a period that is by no means arbitrary, coinciding with the age of growing sexual expression and liberty where coming out was more acceptable in a way that Tchaikovsky – or indeed Onegin – could never have done in their day. I’m not sure that this would have been the case in Russia in the seventies, but (quite the opposite of the recent De Nederlandse production by Stefan Herheim) there’s nothing here in this production that is culturally specific to Russia. So while the first act is by no means anything like the Larina country estate, it at least looks like a fairly well-off family anywhere in Europe during the seventies. I say delightful, and that’s because it’s a loving recreation of the decade in terms of design and colour, with vinyl chairs, bell bottom trousers, coloured leather armchairs and moon landings on the TV, the stage animated by disco lights and dancing queens.

It’s the idea of dancing queens however that is the most controversial aspect of Warlikowski’s production, which features Full Monty routines and shirtless males in cowboy hats and some even in bikinis, shuffling around through the famous Polonaise of the opera. I say shuffling, because it’s very tame stuff indeed, lacking the nerve and the verve to really make the production challenging, even if it is still more than enough to make traditional opera-goers very uncomfortable indeed. I don’t know what the Munich audience made of this or of Onegin’s kiss with his “close friend” Lensky, but I thought it was delicately handled within the context – the spat between the two men a rejection of Onegin’s advances, leading Lensky to throw down the challenge of a duel to defend his honour and reputation before a watching public.

If it wasn’t much to look at, and at times rather more static and all-purpose than one would like, the stage design suited the context setting well, looking most of the time like a 70s’ discotheque, but capable of being transformed reasonably effectively into a family living room or Tanya’s bedroom, allowing the first two acts to flow together without an interval. The duel between Onegin and Lensky takes place over a bed, which was something of a daring touch, but one that worked surprisingly well, principally due to the fine performances – in terms of both singing and acting – of Simon Keenlyside and Pavol Breslik. Keenlyside in particular carried the weight of Onegin’s inner struggle without appearing arrogant, adding to the tragedy of the outcome and his final breakdown. Ekaterina Scherbachenko perhaps didn’t carry the vocal strength or force of some of the best recent more mature Tatyanas (Renée Fleming, Krassimira Stoyanova), but she expressed the youthful innocence, confusion and mortification of her character much more convincingly, singing well and without mannerisms.

The idea of approaching Eugene Onegin from a gay perspective is a challenging one, as is setting it in the 1970s, and there were accordingly some inconsistencies in taking this approach and a static quality at times to the stage direction. The strength of the singing and dramatic performances however – notably from Keenlyside and Tatyana – and a good account of Tchaikovsky’s wonderful, heart-breaking score by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester under Pietari Inkinen, combined to brilliantly bring out the real strength of the work as well as the underlying subtext that undoubtedly contributes to its power and tragedy.