Wouldn’t the plot of Eugene Onegin work well as a series of status updates? We went to see it at the Royal Opera House.
This particular production was on its second outing here and had apparently been toned down a bit. The main conceit was that Tatyana and Onegin were looking retrospectively back on the action and so at some critical moments their roles were doubled by dancers. This didn’t really work for me – I just didn’t want an additional person on stage in the letter scene (for example) – although I think it might have worked in a production which didn’t attempt to be true to the time and place in which it was set.
Another area where literalism broke down was the treatment of the chorus, and I sensed an uncertainty about what to do with them, as they tended to be pushed towards the back of the stage. In the opening scene they laid hands on some of the principal characters – one could imagine their descendants throwing over the old order in the revolution a few decades later – but then they reappeared, still in rather drab monochrome, at Tatyana’s name-day ball. Surely the guests, even in the provinces, would have been rather more brightly dressed?
We had hoped to hear Hvorostovsky in the title role, but medical treatment necessitated his replacement by the Polish baritone Artur Ruciński, looking rather like a younger version of Lech Wałęsa. Somehow I couldn’t imagine a lovesick teenager falling for him – a really great singer would transcend this, but his performance, though adequate, wasn’t at that level. We were happy with Nicole Car (Tatyana) and Oksana Volkova (Olga); however Michael Fabiano as Lensky stole the show. We’ve enjoyed Ferruccio Furlanetto (Gremin) in the past but felt his intonation was a bit dodgy this time.
Semyon Bychkov – last heard conducting Shostakovich – did a good job in the pit. It’s pretty hard to mess up this opera, and it,was certainly worth the effort of the trip to London. There are reviews online, though not of the cast we heard.