Tchaikovsky knew what he thought of the title character of his Eugene Onegin. ‘I loved Tatyana, and was furiously indignant with Onegin who seemed to me a cold, heartless fop,’ he wrote to a friend; and directors, by and large, have been happy to leave it at that. And why not? Dishy but emotionally unavailable Regency dandies have been a growth area in recent years — blame it on Colin Firth, if you like — and Eugene Onegin is probably the standard repertoire opera you’re least likely to see subjected to a directorial updating, in the UK at any rate.
Michael Boyd’s new production at Garsington certainly doesn’t update anything. Fans of the Jane Austen tendency will find riding boots and empire-line dresses galore, while for the St Petersburg ball scenes designer Tom Piper musters a parade of glittering tiaras and gold-braided uniforms worthy of the BBC’s recent War and Peace — looking all the more gorgeous since by then the audience has had dinner and the daylight that streams in on either side of the Garsington stage has faded to something a bit more atmospheric.
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