Onegin — The Best of Ballet

O_negin_ is a 1960s German ballet based on a 19th century Russian novel in verse.

Let the staleness of that sentence fully sink in before continuing, and then think again. The Royal Opera’s revival of Onegin is far, far from stale, but rather a dramatic masterpiece set to rousing music and performed by outstanding dancers.

Pushkin’s dramatic novel Eugene Onegin has attracted much theatrical interest recently, being staged as an opera, a modern dance and a ballet at various locations in London. The Onegin ballet was commissioned in 1965 for the Stuttgart Company, and while the opera’s score had been composed by Tchaikovsky, when composing the score for the ballet, lesser known piano pieces of his were cobbled together and adapted into a surprisingly effective orchestral score.

I have to admit that I haven’t ploughed through the 389 stanzas of the Russian novel, so I’m in no position to relate how well the story and the sentiment are conveyed by the ballet. But I can tell you that it’s a fantastically stirring performance, full of all that you could want out of a cloak-clad 19th century Russian hero. For those who, like me, haven’t read Pushkin’s magnum opus, let me give you the lowdown; Eugene Onegin is a self-centred, arrogant, bored prick who visits the countryside to sneer at the provincial nobility. Tatiana is a sheltered, bookish young girl who falls for his swirling black cloak and scowl. She declares her love, he laughs at her, tears up her love letter and throws it all over her. She’s left broken hearted. Somewhere along the line he also manages to kill Tatiana’s sister’s boyfriend, though this is a bit of a side plot. Years later, Eugene strolls by a party and sees Tatiana as the beautiful wife of a prince. He realises he loves her and tried to win her back. Tatiana has a bit of inner struggle and then lets her anger loose and tears up his love letter to her. As Pushkin put it “who’s laughing now bitch?” (or something like that, I forget the exact words).

Onegin is far from stale but rather a dramatic masterpiece

Marianela Nuñez, in the role of Tatiana, utterly bosses her role, which is staged in such a way to overshadow Thiago Soares, supposedly the lead character in his role of Eugene Onegin. Interestingly enough, the two are actually married in real life, so I shudder to think what the onstage drama is doing to their private life. Tatiana develops from a shy nerdy teen to a passionate would-be lover, who crumples before our eyes under Eugene’s heartless rejection. On the night after they first meet, Tatiana stays up all night imagining Eugene – and for an innocent bookworm she has a fairly racy imagination! In a bit of theatrical magic, Eugene steps out of her mirror as she stands there languidly, and a passionate and exhausting pas de deux ensues ’til dawn.

Tatiana again carries the performance of the night of her rejection of Eugene, as a grown woman. Her stately serene maturity is broken by the sudden and unexpected intrusion of Eugene- she breaks down, swayed between the giddying possibility of escaping with her first love and the responsibilities she has as a married person. The pas de deux that follows, the echo of her teenage dreams, is breath-taking, and culminates in her resolution; she draws herself up, the passion turns to ice and Eugene, covered in fragments of love letter, is banished from the room.

Thiago Soares is outstanding, incredibly agile and energetic.

Technically, Thiago Soares is outstanding, incredibly agile and energetic. But, perhaps on account of the choreography more than the dancer, he seems much more of a one dimensional cut-out character than the wonderful, theatrical and passionate performance that Nuñez brings to her role. This causes a bit of dramatic implausibility, as we’re at times left confused as to why such an obviously cool, superior woman would waste her tears over such a shallow moody man. But then again, that’s a depressingly familiar situation…

Onegin is at The Royal Opera House until 27th February. Tickets from £5