Eugene Onegin – Review of 2025 Canadian Opera Company Production

The Canadian Opera Company is wrapping up its current season with a production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. This production was directed by Robert Carsen for the Metropolitan Opera and premiered at Lincoln Centre in 1997. In 2013 the Met replaced it with a production by Deborah Warner but the Canadian Opera Company (COC) borrowed all scenery and costumes from of the 1997 Met production for its staging of Eugene Onegin in 2018 which it has revived for the current season. More about Carsen’s production below.
The COC production is well equipped vocally. Our attention is focused on lovely Tatyana (soprano Lauren Fagan), the impressionable young girl who falls hopelessly in love with the playboy Eugene Onegin (bass-baritone Andril Kymach). Tatyana dominates the opera vocally and emotionally as she does the audience. The famous Letter Scene covers a breadth of hope, fear, passion and doubt as Tatyana tries to write a letter to Onegin. Fagan captures and expresses Tatyana’s emotional turmoil beautifully.
Kymach as Onegin is arrogant, unsympathetic and even obnoxious especially in the treatment of his friend Lensky (tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson), His treatment of Tatyana is abominable, his action against his friend repulsive and even though singing is good, we do not like him. LeRoy Johnson sings his Farewell to Olga gorgeously.
Mezzo-soprano Megan Marino does superb work as Tatyana’s sister Olga. She is engaged to Lensky and flirts with Onegin at the ball precipitating the duel. But she is excellent vocally and we forgive her because of her youth.
Bass Dimitry Ivashchenko deserves kudos for his role as Prince Gremin, a retired general who marries Tatyana on the rebound no doubt. He is a dignified gentleman who sings in moving sonority about being married to a younger woman. Ivashchenko gives a show-stopping performance.
The set and costume designs are by Michael Levine. More about the sets in a minute but the costumes are what the Russian upper crust aspired to and what the Metropolitan Opera could afford. A lot.
A few words about Carsen’s production are a propos. Carsen has opted for a minimalist production which may have its attractions but also some detractions. The opening scene takes place in the garden of the Larin estate somewhere in Russia. The libretto calls for a house with a terrace on one side, with a flower bed and shady tree nearby. There is thick foliage and a village and a church visible in the distance. In the Carsen production we have the stage floor covered with orange leaves. There are several leafless tree trunks and we see the estate owner Madame Larina (Krisztina Szabo), Tatyana’s mother, doing something with the help of Filipyevna (Emily Treigle).
The director and set designer are not bound by what the librettist imagined but an almost bare stage may be taking it a bit far.
The leaves are partially swept away and we are transported to Tatyana’s bedroom for the Letter Scene. It is supposed to be furnished but all we get is a bed and a table on a bare stage with a view of the sky and the moon. Is that taking minimalism a bit too far?
There is a ball scene where people dance. The waltz is meant for that. The stage is cleared but only a small part of the stage is used for dancing. The square where the dancers are squeezed is so small that the dancers are given very little space in which to dance. I thought some of them had no idea how to waltz but it may have been that there was not enough space for them to move.
The revival director is Peter McLintock and the lighting designer is Christine Binder.
Speranza Scapucci conducted the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra in its marvelous performance of Tchaikovsky’s plush score in production that raises a few eyebrows
in its choice of sets but that is otherwise splendid.
Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is being performed six times until May 24, 2025, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel: 416-363-6671. www.coc.ca

Lauren Fagan as Tatyana in the Letter Scene - Photo: Michael Cooper

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