Germany Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin: Soloists, Refrain and Orchestra of the Komische Oper / James Gaffigan (conductor). Schillertheater, Berlin, 15.12.2023. (MB)
Manufacturing:
Director – Barrie Kosky
Revival director – Werner Sauer
Set designs – Rebecca Ringst
Costumes – Klaus Bruns
Lighting – Franck Evin
Dramaturgy – Simon Berger
Refrain director – David Cavelius
Forged:
Eugene Onegin – Günter Papendell
Tatiana – Ruzan Mantashyan
Olga – Deniz Uzun
Lensky – Gerard Schneider
Mme Larina – Stefanie Schaefer
Prince Gremin – Tijl Faveyts
Filipievna – Margarita Nekrasova
M. Triquet – Christoph Späth
Zaretsky – Ferhat Baday
Captain – Jan-Frank Süße
Guillot – Alexander Kohl
I first noticed Barrie Kosky’s Eugene Onegin, premiered in 2016, in 2019 (overview right here), a number of months earlier than the theatres closed. Then it was on the Komische Oper’s everlasting dwelling on Behrenstrasse. Now, the constructing having closed for a number of years for renovation, this newest revival could also be seen throughout city in Charlottenburg’s Schillertheater, carried out by the corporate’s new music director James Gaffigan. The forged is a mixture of outdated and new, Günter Papendell, Stefanie Schaefer, Tijl Faveyts, and Margarita Nekrasova survivors from 2019, the remaining new (not less than to me).
Reminiscence, although, is an odd factor; or relatively, ‘reminiscences’ are, since even one’s personal will come into battle with each other. Though I remembered liking what I noticed, what I noticed on this event didn’t all the time correspond to my recollections, which can certainly have been of different productions, actual or imagined. A lot the identical may be stated of what unfolds right here (in lots of dramas, little doubt, but it appears or appeared greater than often germane right here). For there are actually misunderstandings, missed alternatives, ‘dangerous timing’, and the remaining within the relationships, not solely Onegin and Tatiana’s, of Eugene Onegin. That of Tatiana and Prince Gremin could also be an exception; but if that’s the case, it’s depending on the failures of one other. It’s, in any case, hardly the central relationship; it serves as a distinction to what may need been, an antidote of actuality to fantasy. Kosky’s setting all the motion in the identical place, with one partial exception, brings with it some loss, not least within the inevitably lesser distinction between private and non-private, whose portrayal subsequently turns into nonetheless extra a matter for the orchestra. But its dramaturgical operate right here additionally brings with it appreciable acquire, anchoring character’s differing understandings, reminiscences, and choices in Rebecca Ringst’s virtually pastoral, out of doors setting that but takes in threatening woods behind. (It’s not as if the libretto instantly vanishes when all stage instructions aren’t adhered to actually.) Though actual sufficient – it isn’t summary – it imparts one thing of a dream-like high quality, during which not solely reminiscences however, not less than as essential, objects bind every little thing collectively.
Jam and jam-jars, as an example: when the opera opens, Mme Larina and the nurse Filipievna are making jam, readily eaten by Tatiana and Olga. When Tatiana sends her letter to Onegin, it’s inside a jar despatched as a present. And so forth, till the shut, when it’s there in what appears to be the identical place: the place all of it (tragically?) started. There’s something would-be bacchanalian to the ball scene, when it takes place outdoor. This, one feels, is as far-off from civilisation as these characters, this society, dare journey. And, after all, it results in the frozen, pointless distress of the duel scene. Onegin, furthermore, doesn’t face the decentring he generally can. There may be loads of and for Tatiana too, however we really feel – and, I feel, have urged to us – extra of his depressing wandering, his downward spiral than traditional. Helplessly drunk when he arrives for the duel, he reveals that it’s already too late for him, not to mention for Lensky. His early stiffness might be a self-defence mechanism; at any charge, we really feel its relationship to what’s to return. All of the whereas, refined transformations in Franck Evin’s lighting help the transformations, each gradual and sudden, within the drama itself. And when a room in Gremin’s palace seems, for the first St Petersburg scene, Onegin by now a tragic, destroyed outsider, it’s only to be dismantled onstage shortly after, in preparation for the ’return’ to a previous which can or might not have ‘really’ existed for the ultimate scene.
Kosky’s conception stays the guiding one. The Komische Oper’s new music director, James Gaffigan, conducting his first manufacturing within the function, would seem to have been offered with sure challenges, not least amongst them caesuras when all stops, hearts included, all falls silent. On this, the primary evening of Werner Sauer’s revival, Gaffigan built-in these and different ‘givens’ to glorious impact. His studying, like Kosky’s, appeared to realize tempo and depth because the night progressed, the orchestra responding with eagerness to the imaginative and prescient with which it was offered. Virtually chamber-like in scale to start with, its Petersburg grandeur was plain, each in itself and in distinction. Choral contributions have been likewise as effectively acted (and blocked) as sung.
Papendell’s Onegin follows and, to an extent, leads that trajectory too. It was a compelling portrayal in 2019 and is in 2023, his brokenness within the third act deeply transferring. Ruzan Mantashyan travelled on a unique, associated journey as Tatiana, convincingly the shy, bookish lady on the outset, very a lot a lady on the shut, albeit one struggling to maintain herself in a single piece. This she achieved via musical and gestural means alike — in addition to fantastic costuming (Klaus Bruns) and make-up. If I generally wished Gerard Schneider would undertake a much less Verdian method as Lensky, his was an undoubtedly dedicated efficiency, significantly superior to what I had heard from one other singer 4 years in the past. Deniz Uzun’s extravert Olga was a pleasure — and a telling distinction along with her extra sophisticated sister. Faveyts and Nekrasova not less than matched reminiscences of their glorious portrayals final time round: not a nasty abstract of the night as a complete. The corporate could also be on the transfer bodily, however not aesthetically, whether or not that be in course or high quality
Mark Berry
