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Russia is rediscovering one of its greatest operas, Pyotr Tchaikovsky's "Yevgeny Onegin", in a production at the legendary Bolshoi Theater that departs from decades of grandiose stagings and instead highlights the work's purity and passion.
The celebrated Moscow theater's new stage, smaller than the Bolshoi main stage that is currently under renovation, is the site of a very new version by the young director Dmitry Chernyakov and conductor Alexander Vedernikov that premiered this weekend.
This Onegin is a world away from the famous production that has run since 1944, which Soviet and Russian viewers have come to know in every detail from countless viewings.
The classic production draws its costumes straight from the fashion revues of the 1830s. Fat snowflakes drift across the stage during the duel between Onegin and Lensky, who invariably was dressed in a fur hat and dark blue cape.
"In this version, Dmitry and I have tried to take the necessary sanitary measures, to clean out the system," Verdenikov said during a news conference last week.
It isn't just costumes, props and stage directions that have changed. The new production returns to Tchaikovsky's original composition, a series of lyrical scenes written for the conservatory stage.
Passages the composer later added for the work's Bolshoi premiere in 1881 have been removed -- the most visible example being the Scottish dance at the start of the third act.
"Tchaikovsky regretted the changes," Chernyakov said during a brief conversation with journalists during a reheasal last week.
When the director went to a performance of the 1944 production in the Kremlin, he understood that the work "was being seen as ritual theater, something like Japanese Noh theater."
"Everyone knew what was going to happen at every instant. It was the collective performance of a ritual, as much for the spectators as for the artists," Chernyakov said in an interview published in the Russian magazine Afisha.
The current production "is based on my intention to make it as sincere and profound as possible," Chernyakov said. "We wanted more passion."
He has gone as far as transforming the duel into an accidental homicide, with Onegin killing a Lensky who is dressed in lambskin and an ordinary winter hat -- which provoked discreet snickers from the audience -- while the two fight over a rifle.
Responding to one scandalized journalist, Chernyakov said: "It's more dramatic and closer to our understanding. Duels are something that we don't understand well -- they're a literary act."
At times, the new Onegin seems like a theatrical work, combining moments of buffoonery, cruelty and tenderness in a way previously unthinkable.
The production's first set is a soberly decorated living room with an armoire and a large oval table -- all of which, costumes included, are in beige, brown and gray tones. Yevgeny is the sole exception, clad in black. Gleb Filshtinsky's light design effectively mimics natural lighting.
The second set is a reception hall in somber red, charged with grief.
Tatyana, when we first see her, is a depressed and dishevelled adolescent. Onegin coldly rejects her, realizing only too late that he loves her, and ends up shattered.
"I like the fact that the director has made Onegin more tender," said Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, one of two performers playing Onegin in the Bolshoi production.
"He's usually presented as an utterly harsh person who does not want to hear anything," said Kwiecien, who has previously performed the role in Poland, Austria, and the United States.
In fact, "he is as romantic as a person can be, and it is his romanticism that kills him."
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AFPEntertainment-Russia-culture-opera
AFP 031229 GMT 09 06
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