THEATER REVIEW: EUGENE ONEGIN

Despina  (Roxana Constantinescu) in Eugene Onegin. 

In Russia with love

By Ed Rampell

L.A. Opera has launched its new season with two operas that have a single, controversial theme: Infidelity. Both works are conducted by James Conlon. One, Eugene Onegin, is a Russian tragedy composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse. The other, Così Fan Tutte, is an Opera buffa, an Italian comedy composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Sung almost entirely in Russian, in Eugene Onegin’s Act I Tatiana (Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka) is a virginal, repressed young woman living in Russia’s countryside. Tatiana throws herself at the dashing newcomer from Petrograd, Onegin (Slovakian baritone Dalibor Jenis), the friend of her sister Olga’s (Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk) fiancée, the poet Lensky (Russian tenor Vsevolod Grivnov). However, for some reason -- unlike the Beatles – “well, the Ukraine girls don’t really knock Onegin out, Moscow girls don’t make him sing and shout and Georgia’s apparently not always on his mind.” Onegin declines Tatiana’s impulsive proposal, declaring their marriage would never work due to certain unspecified characteristics he possesses which would inflict misery upon her.

At a party in Act II Onegin dances with and ogles Olga, prompting his jealous best friend Lensky to challenge him to a duel. The outcome propels Onegin to embark upon a self-imposed exile; in Act III Onegin is back in the pre-U.S.S.R. He’s been away so long he hardly knows the place; gee, it’s good to be back home. At Saint Petersburg he stumbles upon a ball being thrown by elderly Prince Gremin (American bass James Creswell), who has wed a now radiantly beautiful and worldly Tatiana. In a moment of lucidity, Onegin realizes his woes were triggered by snubbing Tatiana, and pursues the now married sophisticated beauty. Although she still has the hots for Onegin, Tatiana won’t come and keep her comrade warm; the tables are turned and now it’s Tanya’s doing the rejecting. You don’t know how unlucky you are, boy! (My sincere apologies to Lenin and Lennon/McCartney.)

Eugene Onegin’s sets are co-stars in L.A. Opera productions, and while scenic designer Antony McDonald’s ho-hum interiors are serviceable, his glowing exteriors are glorious. In the first act McDonald brings alive Mother Russia’s vast steppes, as reapers rhapsodize about the harvest in a great ensemble number with about 40 performers onstage. Old McDonald’s farm is truly beautiful. As at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, lighting designer Peter Mumford creates a sense of the natural passage of time with his colorful, lovely lights. A pond of water makes a big splash and is imaginatively put to good use; it later serves as a skating rink as winter sports are enacted in the third act, wherein McDonald provides a sumptuous, panoramic view of Petrograd (which I recognized from all of those Eisenstein and Pudovkin films about the storming of the Winter Palace). McDonald also acquits himself well with the cast’s 1820s costumes, but those Russian exteriors are eye popping. Bravo1

The score is sonorous and well-conducted; director Francesca Gilpin’s mise-en-scene and choreographer Linda Dobell’s dances are on point. There is, however, a gremlin in the Kremlin. Gremin is played by a performer who is much younger than the prince is supposed to be – and his age is an important plot point obscured by this casting of 30-something Creswell. But this is a mere quibble that should not deter opera lovers from experiencing Tchaikovsky’s lamentation of love loss. 

Eugene Onegin runs through Oct. 9 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. For more info: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.