United Kingdom Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin: Soloists, HGO Chorus and Orchestra / Oliver Cope (conductor). Jacksons Lane Arts Centre, London, 8.11.2024. (MB)
HGO’s new Eugene Onegin is not only one of the most impressive productions I have seen yet from the company; it is one of the most impressive of the work I have seen for quite some time too. It would be easy to dwell on what it is not: it is not a lavish big-house staging with big ‘names’; it has a tiny one-to-a-part orchestra; and so on. That focuses attention in different ways, to a certain extent intrinsically: one hears things differently in arrangements, of course, an intriguing case in point being the way one perceives the band almost diegetically during the ball scene. Acting at close quarters offers a very different, in many ways more intense experience too, visually and aurally; one learns much from the detail of facial expressions that would be missed by the greater part of an audience elsewhere.
Yet none of that would count for very much at all, were it not for the excellence of staging, performances, and ensemble. Almost as if one were attending a performance of, say, Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances, one begins to wonder whether one needs the ‘original’ experience at all. There is room for both, of course, and must be: HGO’s raison d’être is to offer singers at the start of their professional careers opportunities to sing in full-scale, interesting productions before London audiences. Yet it is testament on this occasion to the success of this first night, that I did not feel remotely troubled by having missed Covent Garden’s new staging and having gone to this instead.
Eleanor Burke’s staging sets the work maybe 30 or 40 years ago: it could be just before or just after the fall of socialism, or whatever it is, but that is not really the point. Even in the final act, skilfully evoking with, as elsewhere, minimal resources, what might be some sort of St Petersburg art show, founded in new prosperity (for some), again the point is not so much political as the passing of time. Time and regret are crucial to the work, of course, as to the production. There is nothing pretty, let alone prettified, about the countryside in which this opens; one can well imagine its protagonists would feel some relief on leaving it — save if, like Lensky, they were dead; or, like Tatiana and Onegin, they endure other miserable fates.
These are lonely people, trying to pretend otherwise, trying to make their way in the world, and relying on various crutches – alcohol, drugs, sex, and above all each other – to do so. That again, does not in itself become the point, but rather contextualises the drama and permits it to emerge. Another such crutch lies in literature and in the world of art more broadly. Onegin initially hands Tatiana a book, later returned to him. She writes her letter in it, and that appears to mark some stage in growing up as well as more obvious awakening. Whether ultimately it helps them make sense of themselves and their situation is perhaps questionable, though. Tragedy lies in the consequences of what they do there and then; they cannot always simply learn from their mistakes, since it will often be too late.
For once, one does not find everything, or indeed anything very much, a metaphor for Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality. The strong direction gives the overt drama a new lease of life and one believes in these characters as themselves, Lensky and Olga as much as Onegin and Tatiana, the troubled community in which they grow up too, different characters sketched intriguingly, becoming a chorus when called upon, yet clearly having lives, problems, and personalities of their own. The most real connection – at least before it is all too late – may still lie between Onegin and Lensky, but the devastation felt by both, again realising that they too have destroyed what they had, something that cannot be put back together, seems very much to be what it overtly seems to be. That does not mean other paths might not be or have been followed. A splendid cabaret turn from Quito Clothier’s Monsieur Triquet – very well sung too – acts as a beacon of fascination, awakening, and perhaps liberation for the assembled company. What happens when he and Onegin disappear after the ball, returning for the duel, could doubtless be read in another way. Again, I am not sure that is the point, though, and it has not granted them neither enlightenment nor fulfilment. It merely points the way to the pill-induced disorientation, laced with probably unsatisfactory sexual experimentation, Onegin suffers in his time of wayfaring on the way to St Petersburg: a metaphor for whistling one’s life away, as much as the thing itself.
Ambrose Connolly and Martins Smaukstelis presented a contrasted and complementary pair as Onegin and Lensky, dark and blond, introvert and extrovert, brooding and apparently fun-loving, capable of shocking, volatile exchange in the whirlwind transformations of the ball, here Tatiana’s disastrous eighteenth birthday party. Onegin’s flirtation with Olga, cruelly mocking Lensky, can rarely have felt so overtly real, Smaukstelis in turn seeming to retreat in collapse to his childhood. This was accomplished by excellent acting and singing, their Russian (insofar as I can judge) matching their command of vocal line. Moving unmistakeably, yet not without regret, from girl to woman, Nicola Said’s Tatiana likewise matched dramatic, verbal, and ‘purely’ musical qualities to a degree that would have impressed on any stage. Katey Rylands illuminated Olga’s particular path, first fun-loving and yet ultimately as nagged with doubt and regret, to complete an outstanding central quartet. A Prince Gremin will almost always stand out, his aria such a Tchaikovskian gift. That does not negate the moving excellence with which Wonsick Oh presented it; far from it. Erin Spence’s Mme Larina and Hanna Morley’s Filpyevna were entirely convincing in their new setting, unquestionably more than stock characters; so too were Conall O’Neill’s dark and dangerous Zaretsky, and the broader chorus out of which he stepped.
Oliver Cope’s musical direction was equally crucial to the evening’s success of the evening. To conduct such a performance is at least as stiff a test as with full orchestra; Cope passed with flying colours, as did his band of soloists, whose cultivated chamber playing metamorphosed seemingly without effort into statements, clashes, and tragic entanglements of full-scale Romantic emotions. Interplay between public and private was located above all here in the orchestra, not least given the fruitful scenographic limitations on such a stage. Pacing and balance were well judged, in the service of an excellent musicodramatic continuity impossible to divorce from what was unfolding ‘onstage’.
Clearly a consequence of dedicated, intensive collaboration, all was more than the sum of its considerable parts. Highly recommended.
Mark Berry
Production:
Director – Eleanor Burke
Associate director – Finn Lacey
Designs – Emeline Beroud
Lighting – Trui Malten
Movement – Alex Gotch
Fight director -Rich Gittens
Cast:
Eugene Onegin – Ambrose Connolly
Tatiana – Nicola Said
Lensky – Martins Smaukstelis
Olga – Katey Rylands
Prince Gremin – Wonsick Oh
Mme Larina – Erin Spence
Filipyevna – Hannah Morley
Zaretsky – Conall O’Neil
Monsieur Triquet – Quito Clothier