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by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, directed by Robert Carsen

Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto

May 2-24, 2025

Onegin: “One cannot return to dreams and youth”

The Canadian Opera Company last staged Eugene Onegin in 2018 in a production directed by Robert Carsen and designed by Michael Levine, two Canadian who have international reputations in the world of opera. They created the production for the Metropolitan Opera in 1997 and in 2018 I hoped the COC would purchase the production since it is so impressive and since two important Canadians were involved. As if happened, the COC did purchase the production and the COC has remounted it. Musically and dramatically, this is the finest Onegin I have seen, superbly cast with actors who are also fine actors.

Tchaikovsky himself wrote the libretto based on Pushkin’s 1833 novel in verse. The genius of his libretto is in detailing the turnabout in the relationship of Onegin and the young woman Tatyana. In Act 1 in the countryside Tatyana, a voracious reader of novels, falls in love with the aristocratic Onegin who has become her neighbour. Impassioned, she writes a letter to him confessing her love. After Onegin receives the letter, he confronts Tatyana and humiliates her for expressing such a fantasy.

In Act 3, the situation is reversed. Onegin, after years of travelling the world partially to try to forget a foolish duel he fought with his best friend Lensky, returns to Moscow and discovers that Tatyana is now the wife of the aged Prince Gremin. She is now treated as a grande dame and is admired and respected throughout the city. The sight of her kindles a love for her he did not know he had and he writes her a letter to her confessing this love. Though her old passion is stirred, it is now her turn to instruct him in proper behaviour and reject him.

Michael Levine conveys the notion of people living within the constraints of society by situating all the action within three proscenium-height walls. Jean Kalman’s original lighting design recreated by Christine Binder beautifully bathes the walls in colours that suit the time and place of the action. The transition from colour to colour is so gradual you hardly know it’s happening. Levine creates one of the loveliest visual effects for the duel scene that takes place behind a scrim with the walls in pale blue. The effect is as if the duel were taking place in heavy mist, the participants appearing as merely shadows.

One aspect of Carsen’s direction, reproduced by Peter McClintock, that I still can’t accept is his staging of the polonaise in Act 3. This music recalling the best of Tchaikovsky’s ballets and calls out for dancing, yet Carsen has no dancing at all. Instead, he uses this boisterous piece to show Onegin being helped to change from his duelling garb into formal wear to attend a ball while servants bring on chairs to surround the dance floor. It would be better to have no stage action at all and make the dance a showpiece for the orchestra than give us something so uninteresting on stage. At least, Carsen makes up for this with the following écossaise which choreographer Serge Bennathan has staged as an exciting pas de deux.

The production is very well cast. Welsh bass-baritone Andrii Kymach has a powerful voice and commanding stage presence. He suits the proud Onegin of the first two acts perfectly. Kymach softens his tone for Onegin’s great duet professing his love for Tatyana in Act 3, but he never convinces us that he is truly in love with Tatyana. Rather, Kymach’s performance seems to confirm Tatyana’s theory that Onegin is now in love with her because, unlike when they first met, she is wealthy, noble and unattainable. While it is much more romantic to think that Onegin has finally fallen in love with Tatyana, Kymach’s approach suits the pervasive ironic tone of Pushkin’s portrayal of Onegin in the novel.

Australian soprano Lauren Fagan provides an excellent contrast between the young and mature Tatyanas both through her singing and her body language. Fagan’s traversal of the famous Letter Aria captures combatting feelings of impetuousness and self-criticism. When the previously restrained Tatyana throws off care to express her love, Fagan’s soaring voice makes us feel like this is a personal triumph for the character. In her debate with Onegin as a married woman, Fagan takes us to the opposite extreme making us applaud Tatyana’s restraint in not giving in to Onegin’s claims of love. By employing the many colours in her voice Fagan presents Tatyana as a complex, sympathetic character filled with conflicting emotions.

American tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson received the loudest and longest applause of the entire evening for his impassioned account of Lensky’s pre-duel aria. Strength of voice and sensitive phrasing brought out all the emotions roiling in Lensky’s mind as he wonders how his life has come to such a point that he is fighting a duel with his childhood friend. Johnson well portrayed the escalation of Lensky’s jealousy leading to him to challenge Onegin, when a few minutes reflection could have prevented such an outcome. The sorrow that both Johnson and Kymach express in their duet before the duel provides a painful example of how adherence to social conventions has triumphed over private emotions.

American mezzo-soprano Megan Marino offers a ideal contrast to Fagan’s Tatyana, her lower voice seeming to suggest that Olga is much more grounded and practical than the romantic Tatyana. Young American mezzo-soprano Emily Treigle boasting a deep, well-rounded tone proves to be a fine actor and thoroughly convincing as Tatyana’s aged nurse Filipyevna. A third mezzo-soprano, the much-loved Canadian Krisztina Szabó, brings out the softness and stateliness in her voice to portray Olga and Tatyana’s mother Madame Larina.

Russian bass Dimitry Ivashchenko gives a moving account of Prince Gremin’s well-known aria expressing his love for Tatyana. His deep, velvety tones bring out the sincerity and nobility of the older man’s emotions.

The one element that made this the best Onegin I have ever heard was the conducting of Speranza Scappucci. She showed a deep understanding of the architecture of the entire score and brings out both the fatalism and poignancy of Tchaikovsky’s use of repeated motifs. Despite pauses for set changes, Scappucci gave the work greater forward momentum than I have heard before so that the story’s ending already seemed implicit in its beginning. The delicacy of the music of Act 1 sounded very much like Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 “Winter Dreams” in its balance of strings and winds, whereas she propelled the orchestra through all the dance music of Acts 2 and 3 with such élan that she had to hold onto the railing behind her. 

The COC Orchestra produced such a beautifully blended sound and played with such ideal tempi that I would be happy to hear Scapucci conduct it in one of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies. If you’ve never heard Onegin before or even if you’ve heard it many times, this production is one not to miss.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Andrii Kymach as Eugene Onegin and Lauren Fagan as Tatyana (foreground), Evan LeRoy Johnson as Lensky and Megan Marino as Olga (background); Megan Marino as Olga and Evan LeRoy Johnson as Lensky; Lauren Fagan as Tatyana and Andrii Kymach as Eugene Onegin. © 2025 Michael Cooper.

For tickets visit: www.coc.ca.