Eugene Onegin

Published Thursday 13 March 2008 at 12:55 by David Gutman

This production by the late Steven Pimlott is dominated by its design concepts which, for once, work best from the cheaper seats. There are almost too many visual coups. First up is a dropcloth depicting a familiar image of a naked youth in melancholy pose, though any homoerotic intent is jettisoned during the opera itself, which emphasises rather the presence of water in all its forms. A stream is set (for some invisibly) into the floor of the stage. The heroine wades into it after she has dispatched her fateful letter. Later, it becomes an ice rink - St Petersburg’s frozen Neva. Peter Mumford’s lighting makes great play with watery effects.

Meanwhile scenery and costumes border on the hallucinogenic, eschewing the down-to-earth realism once considered de rigueur. The action is set in a series of framed, noisily moveable boxes, although the singers tend to step forward to address the audience direct in their big numbers.

The main roles are cast from strength. Gerald Finley doesn’t do caddish, his Onegin inescapably noble of bearing as well as focused of voice. When he tells Tatyana he can love her only as a brother, it seems to reveal his own lack of self-awareness, deliberate put-down no longer.

Piotr Beczala’s Lensky is a more conventional portrayal. Making her house debut as Tatyana, Hibla Gerzmava brings more recognisably Slavic timbre. She is genuinely fresh and affecting as the timid young provincial with girlish dreams and a little adolescent puppy fat.

Other stand-outs include Hans-Peter Konig’s resonant Prince Gremin and Elizabeth Sikora’s characterful Nurse. Jiri Belohlavek, another Royal Opera first-timer, conducts with unsensational skill.