The Royal Opera House is currently finishing its runs of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”, the opera based on Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel. The last two opportunities to see “Eugene Onegin” are 10 and 14 October, and we think you shouldn’t miss them. Perhaps Russian-speaking Londoners will come to the theatre expecting to see sets depicting the beauty of Russian country estates and the opulence of St. Petersburg balls. Such expectations from productions of “ Eugene Onegin” are a tribute to tradition, a habit of seeing conservative albeit really beautiful designs. But let us not forget that Tchaikovsky once tried to avoid the pressures of Pushkin’s canonical text’s power over Russian audiences by selecting only individual “lyrical scenes” from it and arranging them into an intimate, very personal story of human disappointment and loss.
The American playwright and director Ted Huffman, the author of several opera librettos who has already directed the opera “4.48 Psychosis” based on Sarah Kane’s cult play, did not make this decision out of a desire to be egregious. There is nothing visually grotesque, provocative or screamingly modern about this production. Even the director’s decision to expand the role of the French teacher Monsieur Triquet to a trickster, a clown-demon of this show becomes appropriate and seems to be a tribute to a certain retro-tradition, to films of the 1960-70s. Huffman, with an intention quite similar to that of Tchaikovsky to overrun the pressures of a famous classical work, decides to free Tchaikovsky’s opera and his production from the weight of any expectations. He approaches it as a “non-Russian man” , that is, he is looking for things that are relevant and relatable in any epoch annd culture. That is why it is important for Huffman to make the opera about the Russian “superfluous man” Onegin and the correct, kind, sensual girl Tatiana more minimalistic and open to new psychological interpretations in the nuances of the main characters’ relationships. All of a sudden we notice that it is not only Tatyana and Onegin, but also Lensky and Olga, as well as Gremin, the elder Larina and even Monsieur Triquet that have experienced resignation to loss and the passing of time like water into the sand.
Huffman, who has paid attention to the innovative montage of scenes in the libretto by Tchaikovsky and Konstantin Shilovsky, develops the potential for inner freedom inherent in the text. The director comes up with titles for seven of Tchaikovsky’s lyrical scenes, building up a precise chronology of events (we are used to knowing it from the novel, but in the opera it is by no means obvious) – “Autumn”, “That Night” (the scene of Tatiana’s letter), “Next Morning”, “Winter” (the scene of Tatyana’s birthday party), “Early Next Morning” (the duel scene), “Years Later” and another “Next Morning” (the scene of Tatyana rejecting Onegin). As can be seen even from these titles, the productions adopts a Chekhovian way of indicating the passage of time. And so the main theme of Huffman’s production seems to be our memory of bygone time and youth, regrets about decisions made or not made. It seems that the production, with its black and white walls and only isolated splashes of colour, is itself a product of someone’s memory. May be, of the despairing Onegin? The fragmentary nature of the opera suddenly acquires a new meaning – it is just an uneven memory. And the clown-teacher Triquet serves as a catharsis of these memories, their witness, a mystical keeper of time.
Undoubtedly, this “Eugene Onegin” will give ground for conversations and discussions among opera connnoiseurs, and help us reconsider and revisit this music and text, or to get to know them without prejudices and expectations. This Onegin is a must-see, even if you will want to argue with it or marvel at it.
