Nobody paints the anguished inarticulacy or the needy agony of young love in more generous brushstrokes than Tchaikovsky, and his Pushkin opera, Eugene Onegin, is currently available online in Barrie Kosky’s lushly evocative 2016 production (to 31 July).

Eugene Onegin
Komische Oper Berlin; Streaming on operavision.eu

Nobody paints the anguished inarticulacy or the needy agony of young love in more generous brushstrokes than Tchaikovsky, and his Pushkin opera, Eugene Onegin, is currently available online in Barrie Kosky’s lushly evocative 2016 production (to 31 July). Originally seen at Berlin’s Komische Oper, Kosky’s turn-of-the-century Onegin is a hazy, gilded affair – an endless, distantly remembered summer where first love and first rejection come hot on each other’s heels.

Tchaikovsky’s opera is often about formal interiors – ballrooms, bedrooms, salons – but here we’re out amongst it. Tatyana and her sister, Olga, lounge in the long grass; guests picnic under the trees. Tatyana’s birthday dance becomes a wild fête galante, all burning torches and dark, woody corners.

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