Opera Scotland

Eugene Onegin 2012English Touring Opera

Read more about the opera Eugene Onegin

English Touring Opera's 2012 season brought two productions to Perth - a successful new staging of The Barber of Seville and this revival of Eugene Onegin. James Conway's 2007 production worked surprisingly well in the intimate space of the Perth Theatre, with a powerful dramatic punch at the climaxes. It was good to see it revived in the familiar, and clearly projected, Lloyd-Jones translation

That first cast set a memorably high standard and the 2012 edition was equally successful. Australian baritone Nicholas Lester amply confirmed the excellent impression already made both in Perth and Glasgow, Sarah-Jane Davies, established as a leading soprano with ENO in London, had not appeared in staged opera in Scotland, and gave a lovely performance as Tatyana. And Frances McCafferty made a rare and welcome visit home. Another young Australian impressed as Lensky, and it was good to hear a real contralto as Larina. The cover who went on as Olga slipped into the ensemble without the slightest sense of unease.

Michael Rosewell, a familiar expert at this music, again conducted, and paced the drama beautifully, with lovely touches from the woodwind. The single interval divided Act Two, falling after the challenge, and before the duel. Lensky lay dead as the dancers assembled (his exit discreetly screened) - the major disadvantage came with the loss of any sense of the passage of years. The doddery old tutor Monsieur Triquet was presented as a young man - fair enough when a genuinely experienced tenor is not cast in the part, except that his little song is deliberately composed as a stylistic throwback to the eighteenth century - but then the late nineteenth century updating of costumes compounded that difficulty.

These images are of the 2007 cast.