Eugene Onegin
Onegin has long defied comprehensive translation into English, just like many other precious parts of Pushkin’s oeuvre. This ‘encyclopaedia of Russian life’ attracts a primarily Russophonically inclined audience whatever form it takes. In the form of a ballet, however, it becomes a delight even for our linguistically challenged friends. Choreography is a language of its own, and one must wonder whether they used to dance Tower of Babel.
The hall roars as Tatiana and Onegin embrace in front of the curtain for their final, lengthy bow, but the clamour does not stop: the stamina of excitement keeps us applauding. Natalia Osipova certainly surpasses herself here, her final silent cry catalysing hidden and not-so-hidden tears. Who knows how to scream without sound but a Russian soul? The ballet culminates in precisely that; she runs to the edge of the stage and releases a mute cry, visibly shivering. Show me a woman familiar with this novel in verse who has not been heart-broken by the tragic tale of, as the website advertises it, ‘first love and lost chances’. While it is a matter of speculation who lost what and who fell in love first (Tatiana’s obsession with Onegin can easily be paralleled with Liza’s projection of borrowed French-novel qualities onto Molchalin), it is certain that John Cranko’s choreography, with this cast, conveys the drama’s core sentiment. What a potent potion; indulge at your own risk.
A few dithyrambs must be paid to the set design, which was grand (as one expects from Covent Garden) yet perfect in tonality: the quiet of the rural deeps, the stuffy, warm cosiness of the ball, the chilly, alien dawn of the duel beneath its bright yellow moon. These moods flowed into one another in a cohesive kaleidoscope of colours and textures, lace curtains above framing many scenes and giving the impression of peering into a doll’s house. A clever device was the transparent faux curtain that re-emerged now and then, bearing Onegin’s seal — a serifed ‘E.O’. encircled by a floral garland and ringed with the line that becomes ironic and poignant as events unfold: Quand je n’ai plus d’honneur, il n’existe pas d’honneur (‘When I no longer have honour, honour no longer exists’). It is as though the whole stage were the content of a letter, perhaps Onegin’s, steeped in retrospective nostalgia and remorse for the tragic events that break Tatiana’s heart and lead to Lensky’s needless death.
It was curious to foreground female grief in the duel scene and relegate the ceremonial death to the cold shadow behind the ladies. We usually dwell on Onegin’s horror at seeing he has killed his friend, at the expense of considering how the shot shakes Olga’s and Tatiana’s younger hearts. Olga, graciously performed by Sae Maeda, appears not as a charming seductress but as a child who fails to grasp the gravity of the situation until confronted with Lensky’s determination to duel. I am quite fond of how RBO’s productions tend to reimagine this scene: in Onegin-the-opera, staged in late autumn 2024, Lensky shot himself.
Onegin, oh Onegin! Did I expect to see him wearing leather? Certainly not, yet the all-black costume with a leather tail-coat was a playful nod to his rebellious ‘sex, drugs and rock-’n’-roll’ dandyism. The casting of Lukas B. Brændsrød is perfect in poise, physique and that obnoxious, distant manner so essential to Eugene. When he tore Tatiana’s silly yet honest letter with such cold, admonitory precision, only a dispassionate spectator would not have wanted to slap his beautiful face, so veritable was the character. Perpetually desynchronised, whether dancing with Tatiana or charming Olga out of boredom — his pas de deux are choreographed less as pas de deux than as pas d’un plus a featured lady. Always looking elsewhere, this insolent boy! Until the end, of course, when his hands desperately trace the contours of Tatiana’s dress and his body trails heavily beside her writing desk.
A scene that I doubt I will ever forget is Tatiana’s dream. The visual vocabulary of its choreography oscillated between erratic and sensual, and it was the only moment when Eugene and Tatiana moved in unison. It sent chills of delight to recognise a familiar Phantom of the Opera motif: Tatiana stares into her mirror on the night she writes her letter; Eugene (his spectre) enters through the glass and leans toward her neck. The way he whirls her across the stage in sweeping spirals, Osipova’s perfectly effortless extensions and sculpted lines, the fluidity and amplitude of every lift — perhaps you can translate words into choreography, but you can’t exactly go back.
