Eugene Onegin * * * * *
Wolverhampton Grand Theatre
Review by Richard Bratby

Everyone knows the score with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. An unlikeable protagonist, a collection of sub-Chekhov stock figures – and the Letter Scene. Well, no longer. James Conway's searching new production for English Touring Opera upsets every assumption we're used to making about this greatest of Russian operas.

There are no stock characters here. Linda Hibberd's compassionate and dignified Filipyevna and Geoffrey Moses' affectingly frail Gremin anchor their scenes; so, more surprisingly, does Marie Elliot's poised Olga. Their feelings, however prosaic, are real – it's Tatiana's fantasies and Lensky's posturing that destabilize this world. As Lensky, Michael Bracegirdle's fresh tenor and petulant manner was surely exactly what Tchaikovsky had in mind when he specified that Onegin be sung by a young cast.

In this context, Onegin's and Tatiana's stories deepen astonishingly. Amanda Echalaz made a convincing lovestruck teenager; touchingly awkward, then gustily impulsive in the Letter Scene.

Only in Act Three did she let her tone open out and soar, utterly convincing as a mature woman racked by genuine passion. It made perfect dramatic sense.

And for once, Tatiana's dilemma was believable. A sonorous Roland Wood portrayed Onegin as a man aware of his own emotional failure.

As Lensky lies dead, he glances up at his reflection in the huge mirror suspended mid-stage – the only character to do so. It's devastating. By the final scenes, he's no longer a rake getting his desserts but a genuinely sympathetic hero.

Was this what Tchaikovsky intended? Not explicitly. But when a production as sensitive as this one (matched by glorious orchestral playing under Michael Rosewell) shows it to be so, the case is unanswerable. You won't see a more intelligent, more committed, or more heartbreaking Eugene Onegin.