EUGEN ONEGIN

Peter Tschaikowsky

Cast

Trailer | Trailer | Eugen Onegin

Reviews

Jens Daniel Schubert - Sächsische Zeitung:

The images burrow into the ear

Peter Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" tells three operas in one: to see and to hear in an exciting staging now in Görlitz.

The Görlitz premiere of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" on Saturday was celebrated with great jubilation. A melodiously formative New Lausitz Philharmonic, a homogeneous strong chorus and a thoroughly convincing soloist ensemble presented the opera in a gripping, tense and visually powerful interpretation - the season's highlight in the Lausitz.

Director Sebastian Ritschel put the focus of his interpretation in each act on a different main character. He first tells of Tatiana, who dreams her way out of the confines of her living environment, who writes a soulful love letter in a feverish, sleepless night and for who the dismissive reaction of Onegin is devastating. The second act is about the poet Lensky, who "thinks" in his poetic rapture the circumstances suitable. He also fails because of Onegin, who wants to open Lensky's eyes and to teach the unteachable a deadly lesson. The third part of the staging focuses on Onegin. Onegin's sense of reality leads him in an identity crisis and ironically it is Tatyana, who shows him the impossibility of an escape into happiness. Tatyana suffers, but Onegin breaks.

Ritschel's interpretation is consistent and compelling. His staging of the figures follows close observations and leads to clearly defined characters with clear attitudes and exciting developments.

Based on a concept of space by dramaturge Ronny Scholz, Britta Bremer has built a visually appealing, dramatically strong and theatrically effective stage set. A small, separate room built from the pages of the novel, which cushion apparently not just for Tatyana the harsh narrow limits of the world. An oversized window opens backwards to the different, great, sometimes dreamlike prospect. The ideal world of reading gets holes with each page being torn from the wall. Finally there is nothing but the bare, cold black cell in which Onegin despairs. With the historical, beautifully styled an yet aptly characterizing costumes and an effective lighting a tremendously impressive look is created. [...]

With this "Onegin" the ensemble in Görlitz proves once again the power and the chances of realizing great musical theatre even in small houses.

Boris Michael Gruhl - DNN

The death and the rules of art

Tchaikovsky's lyrical scenes: "Eugene Onegin" in Görlitz

What a great joy in the Theater Görlitz: for the ensemble, for the orchestra, especially for the audience, which thanked with loud, often jubilant applause for this premiere. Quite deserved. [...]

Life is not a novel in verses. Britta Bremer has built a closed room, the walls are plastered with the 51 verses of the eight chapters of Pushkin's novel, on which Tchaikovsky based his lyrical scenes. In this room as in the severity of the house of Bernada Alba, Larina with her daughters Olga and Tatiana and the nurse Filippyevna scrape their pretensions of life. They take refuge in memories, dreams or verses. Things that happen outside this traumatic prison occur only as an image, an illusion of reality. This is why again and again, as for the chorus of countrymen, opens an unattainable window far above. The image of her beloved Onegin as an idealized icon appears to Tatyana, the window opens like a door in the iconostasis of Russian cathedrals.

During the unstoppable failure, the verses fall from the walls, the room is a tomb, and with strictly measured strides, as the society is moving in a funeral procession, festivities are performed, not celebrated. Here Tatyana entrusts herself to Onegin through her verses in her big letter scene, here she accepts his humiliation like a rebuked child, perching well on the big chair. Here, Lensky, suffering from fear of loss, will challenge Onegin to a duel and, at the critical moment, will be so unworldly that he does not know how to use the weapon. Here, Onegin and Tatiana meet again, she is the princess Gremina, he the world traveller without arrival. She wins her moment of freedom, tears the fatal letter, speaks of her love without hope of fulfilment, escapes the room through a small side door before the heavy black blanket sinks on the lonely Onegin like the lid of a coffin.

Sebastian Ritschel has staged this drama of living corpses with strict accuracy and choreographic skills. He knows less is more. That is why each of his characters got a short, but accurate measure of characteristic signals, which are associated with the music. Thus, images of great urgency arise, and sometimes a tendency to symbolic exaggeration, particularly in the staging of the chorus scenes, cannot be overlooked.