Opera review: Cast delivers a nuanced 'Onegin'

Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" tells a subtle story, and not just by the over-the-top standards of opera.

The title character is a worldly, upper-class Russian bored by his life in the country. Invited by the poet Lensky to a neighbor's home to meet the young woman whom the latter intends to marry, he is surprised to learn that it is the flighty Olga, and not her intense but poised sister Tatiana, that has caught his friend's eye. But when Tatiana falls in love with him, Onegin gently brushes her off, explaining that he's not the type to settle down ("I was not created for bliss. It is alien to my soul").

By the end of the opera, which is based on a novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin, the wooed becomes the wooer as a world-weary Onegin sees the elegant wife that Tatiana has made for another man. Is it too late to choose the happy life he once spurned?

This is a story about the dreams of youth and the regrets of age, and to deliver its full dramatic punch, "Onegin" requires performers who can not only sing gorgeous arias but also create characters of unassuming depth and honest feeling. And the cast of Arizona Opera's new production delivers in full.

Soprano Corinne Winters traces a delicate character arc as Tatiana. In the first act, composing a love letter in the privacy of her room, she captures the overwhelming passion of first love ("I turned to flame") but also the precocious wisdom of a girl wise enough to wonder if "this is all a meaningless dream, the delusion of an inexperienced heart." As indeed it turns out to be.

Equally nuanced is baritone David Adam Moore as Onegin, exuding a quiet charisma. (Moore played the role on opening night and returns on Sunday; Chris Carr will take over on Saturday.) And tenor Zach Borichevsky is a standout as Lensky, singing with a lilting melancholy as he prepares to fight a duel with his onetime friend.

If only the scenic design, by Laura Fine Hawkes, were as richly realized as the performances. Most of the action takes place on an oval riser against a simple backdrop of wood painted with brown and gold leaves. The image is evocative of autumn, with all its obvious symbolic implications, but it isn't enough to conjure the time and place of the story.

Scene changes are indicated with a handful of add-on pieces. The actors wheel on a pair of fruit trees for an outdoor scene, for example, but the impact is minimalist to the point of why-bother. A couple of transitions are far more effective, but they are also more cumbersome, slowing down the already leisurely action.

Stage director Tara Faircloth makes the most of these limited resources, however. The most striking thing about her interpretation is how pointedly she places Tatiana at the center of the action, even though it's Onegin that gives the opera its title. Again and again Tatiana returns to the spotlight at center stage, focusing the audience on how events effect her even when she is more observer than instigator.

It's not a radical revision, but it tilts the balance so the plot becomes less the tragedy of a man who realizes too late what matters in life and more a coming-of-age story of a young woman who learns a hard lesson, and takes it to heart.

Reach the reviewer at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896.

Arizona Opera: 'Eugene Onegin'

Reviewed Friday, Feb. 6. Remaining performances: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8. Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second St., Phoenix. $25-$135. 602-266-7464, azopera.org.