Opera Scotland

Eugene Onegin 2013Opera Bohemia

Read more about the opera Eugene Onegin

Opera Bohemia's new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before performances in Kirkcaldy and Glasgow.  John Wilkie's imaginative staging is set at the time of the Russian revolution.

Company regulars Douglas Nairne and Catriona Clark led an accomplished cast of young professional singers, including Scottish Opera's former emerging artists Ross McInroy and Katie Grosset. The Lensky was English National Opera's principal tenor Tyler Clarke, who had featured in their Barber of Seville.  For the first time the company used a small orchestra. Alistair Digges conducted the newly formed Opera Bohemia Ensemble, recruited from young Scottish  professional players, in a skilfully reduced orchestration of Tchaikovsky's evocative score.

In another innovation for the company, the production was sung in Russian with English surtitles. This might have seemed strange, but several of the singers, having participated in the Conservatoire's Russian productions in recent years, now seemed quite comfortable with the language.