Eugene Onegin, Tiroler Landestheater, 26 April 2025

Images: Birgit Gufler
Onegin (Jacob Phillips), Sie (Eleonore Bürcher), Tatiana (Marie Smolka)

Eugene Onegin: Jacob Phillips
Tatiana: Marie Smolka
Lensky: Alexander Fedorov
Olga: Bernarda Klinar
Prince Gremin: Oliver Sailer
Mme Larina: Abongile Fumba
Filipyevna: Fotini Athanasaki
Zaretsky: Julien Horbatuk
Monsieur Triquet: Jason Lee
Captain: Stanislav Stambolov
Sie: Eleonore Bürcher
Precentor: Junghwan Lee

Director: Eva-Maria Höckmayr
Designs: Julia Rösler
Dramaturgy: Diana Merkel

Chorus and Extra Chorus of the Tiroler Landestheater (chorus director: Michael Roberger)

Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck

Matthew Toogood (conductor) 

Innsbruck is celebrated as a centre for early music and was, of course, a great centre for what was then contemporary music from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, as both capital of the Tyrol and Maximilian I’s Residenzstadt. (It is impossible to avoid his presence, even if for some eccentric reason one should wish to do so.) The Tiroler Landestheater is perhaps less well known to outsiders, but consistently offers adventurous programming in musical and spoken theatre as well as dance. This year’s opera programme ranges from Purcell (King Arthur) to Schoenberg (Von heute auf morgen, in a double-bill with I Pagliacci). I had initially thought I was coming to La clemenza di Tito, but confusion over dates left me with the perfectly acceptable substitute of Eugene Onegin. For devotees of a different kind of musical theatre, the musical Hair is on offer too. 

Eva-Maria Höckmayr’s new production of Onegin can be understood to offer three principal lines of approach: abstraction, feminism, and memory. The last of those is intrinsic to the work, yet is emphasised here in a staging introduced by an enigmatic woman styled simply ‘Sie’ (‘she’ or ‘her’) in possession of Tatiana’s letter or a copy thereof. I initially assumed this was Tatiana later in life, and indeed it might be, but I do not think that is ever rendered explicit in her spoken words. Perhaps it is better to think of her as an Everywoman, who could be archetypal or more specific, according to one’s particular standpoint. Often movingly portrayed by Eleonore Bürcher she observes and occasionally interacts—though the interaction is probably more on her side than that of the others. Memory is like that, though perhaps not entirely, at least in our imagination. Onegin and Tatiana look forward too, after all, accurately or otherwise. The abstraction of Julia Rösler’s set designs, combined with relative, slightly stylised historicity of her costumes likewise creates space not only for more than one standpoint but for their interaction in work and performance. Acts of dressing and undressing contribute further, similarly reminding us that this is both drama and theatre (which involves artifice, and in a postdramatic age may or may not involve drama). 

Tatiana, Onegin, Lensky (Alexander Fedorov)

The feminist or at least female angle is understandable and common to many stagings. No one should object, but I have my doubts with this specific work (whilst, I hope, retaining an open mind). The problem is not so much that this is an opera called Eugene Onegin, not Tatiana Larina. There are plenty of works whose title roles are not their central one; we do not complain that Rameau wrote Hippolyte et Aricie, for instance. Nor is there any intrinsic problem with decentring a character; it can benefit all characters, the decentred one included, as for instance we saw in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Aix Carmen. Instead, the problem lies with Tchaikovsky having created an opera in which, unless one is careful, Tatiana (whose feelings are surely in large part a projection of his own) already overshadows the others. To my mind, a richer and more balanced dramatic treatment necessitates a little gentle help for Onegin to emerge, most likely (though not necessarily) bringing out the torment of his feelings for Lensky: important in themselves, but also because they and the situation created bring Lensky and Olga, arguably Prince Gremin, to life too. The score suggests, even straightforwardly tells us things Pushkin does not. Here, Lensky and Olga in particular seemed a little lost, abandoned even, as surplus to requirements. One can say, of course, that Tatiana deserves to be rescued from homosexual projection, to become her own character. That is a laudable aim, but I think it happens anyway in the third act, and the danger of overbalancing is greater. Still, this is a general issue I have with stagings of the work, not with this one, which pursues its approach with intelligence and a welcome openness.   

Moreover, Höckmayr and Marie Smolka present an undeniably interesting, sympathetic Tatiana, especially in the first act, where we see her so shy, perhaps even emotionally crippled, that she can hardly bear look Onegin in the face, let alone touch him, in evidenf contrast with the existing warm relationship between Lensky and Olga. Smolka’s portrayal warmed as her character did, in general finely spun vocally and dramatically. Jacob Phillips’s thoughtful Onegin offered a trajectory of its own, always working with yet far from limited to the text. If it was not favoured by the production, its quality was such that it nonetheless had space to shine. Alexander Fedorov’s Lensky was ardent, involving, again to an extent that it overcame the challenge imparted by the production. Jason Lee’s Triquet brought a welcome sense of theatricality and ambiguity. Other parts were well taken, but for me the evening’s true discovery was Abongile Fumba, whose rich-toned, compassionate Mme Larina had me keen to hear her in more extended roles. Oliver Sailer's Prince Gremin rightly drew enthusiastic applause at the close.

Orchestra and chorus showed themselves flexible throughout. If, at times, Matthew Toogood’s tempi seemed a little slow, I suspect that was from a concern, successfully achieved, to assist a cast of mostly young singers grow into its roles rather than an overall conception. That such a work can be cast from company singers and that others will be too speaks of the ongoing worth of a system British ‘major’ houses have long since abandoned, to their – and our – detriment. For now, in the words of that celebrated Renaissance song by Heinrich Issac, ‘Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen,’ but I hope to return.

The Rake's Progress, Royal Academy of Music, 24 November 2022

Susie Sainsbury Theatre

Tom Rakewell – Ryan Vaughan Davies
Anne Trulove – Cassandra Wright
Nick Shadow – Jacob Phillips
Father Trulove – Hovhannes Karapetyan
Sellem – Samuel Kibble
Baba the Turk – Rebecca Hart
Mother Goose – Georgia Mae Ellis
Keeper of the Madhouse – Duncan Stenhouse.

Frederic Wake-Walker (director)
Anna Jones (designs)
Charlotte Burton (lighting)
Ergo Phizmiz (collage, animation, AI image generation and illustration)
Lottie Bywater (illustration and animation)

Chorus
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Trevor Pinnock (conductor)

Blessed by varied approaches to its staging and performance, The Rake’s Progress seems to remain eternally itself (whatever that might mean, as a sometime Prince of Wales might have put it). Not unlike Stravinsky’s evergreen score, the cleverer and in many respects the more involving the more one knows it, everything may seem to come from somewhere else, and in a sense it does; but equally, in another sense, it does not. It makes for great theatre, almost no matter what, and Royal Academy Opera certainly achieved that, as indeed it did when I reviewed an earlier production here by John Ramster, seven years ago. 

This new incarnation, directed by Frederic Wake-Walker, relies heavily on eye-catching animation (Ergo Phizmiz) and images of present-day London from Downing Street to City towers to (presumably former) local authority buildings in their shadow. In one sense (yes, Janus-faced again), it was not always clear to me what it might all add up to. Another Rake placing London at its very heart, Simon McBurney’s as seen in Aix, for me penetrated deeper. For instance, with cardboard boxes—a very large one being Baba the Turk’s sedan chair—arriving alongside partygoers on Downing Street, I assumed we might have some sort of insight into more notorious parties still; yet instead, we headed somewhere else. The party had moved on—as, of course, so many Covid partygoers urged us to. Perhaps indeed that was the point, for earlier eighteenth-century costumes and Arcadia notwithstanding, this was a Rake for the age of Instagram, chorus members eager to snap pictures of Baba once she had emerged.

The odd thing was that Baba simply seemed to be a celebrity, with no evident reason for notoriety and certainly no beard: a sort of cross between Su Pollard and Lady Gaga. Again, perhaps that was the point. There were plenty of visual jokes, which kept a lively audience amused. And who is to say, after all, that one does not miss the point if one does not remain on the surface level? With boxes strewn across scenes, signs of transitory lives, and bubble wrap emerging ingeniously from them, that certainly did seem to be part, at least, of the point. The melancholy work of Bedlam inmates at the end, refashioning material that once had made up their party clothes, was an excellent touch. 

Stravinsky points both ways, of course; so too, arguably, does Auden. Trevor Pinnock’s conducted a lively and generous account of the score, the Royal Academy Sinfonia sharp, pointed, yet far from inexpressive. Occasionally I missed greater numbers in the pit, but chamber forces had virtues of their own, not least in solo work, where reference to eighteenth-century music(s) in particular truly hit home. The orchestra contributed greatly to the gaiety of the occasion, but also to its poignancy, and not only in the final act. Lost moments of Cosi fan tutte, suspended in musical animation, made their fleeting point almost as strongly as the fatal games of the graveyard scene (for which special mention should go to the excellent harpsichordist Alexsander Ribeiro de Lara). The chorus, very much a collection of soloists, in gesture and musical line, who could yet come together as more than the sum of their parts, was not the least shining light of the evening’s entertainment. 

Nor too were the young soloists, many of them doubtless heading towards careers in whatever remains of the opera business after our Downing Street masters and ‘Arts Council England’ have had their say. Like Stravinsky—Auden too—they may have to emigrate. Good luck to them, if so, if Brexit-Insel continues to treat them as seems likely. Ryan Vaughan Davies was a memorable Tom Rakewell, neglecting neither implied poignancy of situation nor irresistible allure of the moment. Whether one should sympathise or not is perhaps a moot point; it would, however, have been difficult to fail to do so.

Likewise, from other angles, the rest of the cast—who might, after all, on paper seem difficult to like, let alone to love. Cassandra Wright’s Anne combined cleanness and beauty of Mozartian line with the fleshed-out character of his heroines: a combination far from always achieved. Jacob Phillips’s dark and dangerous Nick Shadow involved us, like it or not. Hovhannes Karapetyan’s dark-voiced, seemingly generous-of-heart Father Trulove, Georgia Mae Ellis’s fun-loving yet formidable Mother Goose, and Rebecca Hart’s capricious yet, at the last, deeply human Baba the Turk all added novelty to their roles without departing unduly from what we (fancied we) already knew. Samuel Kibble’s lively Sellem and Duncan Stenhouse’s compassionate Keeper of the Madhouse rounded off a cast with no weak links and excellent interaction. Perhaps, indeed, that was the point.