Sabotaging Tchaikovsky

Eugene Onegin
Bolshoi, Royal Opera House 

La bohème
Soho Theatre, until 4 September

Rule 1 for the sophisticated contemporary opera-goer: complain about the poor diction of singers, especially as compared to 50 years ago, and lay most of the blame on surtitles (actually the connection between the two phenomena is unclear). Rule 2: be astonished at the naïveté of anyone who is bewildered by contradictions between what is said (sung) and what is happening.

To judge from the Bolshoi Opera’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Russian directors are cottoning on to modern trends. The whole thing is set in a vast dining room, with a big table round which the chorus sits. So after the delightfully open-air music with which the opera begins, when Mme Larina says to the guests, ‘Come inside and have some supper,’ they have all been pretending to eat and chatter since curtain-up. During the most exquisite passage in the Letter Scene, Tatiana, frustrated by her indecision, pushes the table and noisily knocks over many of the chairs. The duel takes place — or, rather, fails to — partly on the table, until Onegin and Lensky struggle and the rifle goes off, accidentally killing Lensky, which makes Onegin’s years of remorse and travel incomprehensible. The Gremins live in a very similar setting, but with crimson walls and fancy chairs. The Polonaise isn’t danced; and so on.

What makes this sabotaging of the opera by director and designer Dmitri Tcherniakov so irritating is that the musical side of things is for the most part wonderful. Dmitri Jurowski, brother of the better-known Vladimir, conducts his great orchestra with precision and passion; and the players have retained more than I expected to hear of the traditional Russian sounds, incredibly grainy lower strings, vibrato from the brass.