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17 hours ago, Mérante said:

Eugene Onegin as a human being, is the epitome of all that Pushkin despised in the Russian upper classes.  The man is a self-seeking cad (reread the opening chapter, as he ghoulishly awaits his Uncle's death ...), remorseless, ignorant (Pushkin is perfectly explicit about his reading habits) and destructive. 

 

The ballet is John Cranko's interpretation of Pushkins poem. Obviously, he doesn't see Onegin as a cad but more like a Byronesque figure, and his reading of Pushkin's words relies so much more on the final chapters of the book, where Tatyana says, for example, "I know your heart:  it has a feeling for honour, a straightforward pride". I'm not so firm in the different Russian readings of "Eugene Onegin", but I think if you doubt even these words of Tatyana and her love for him, you have to read the whole book in a very cynical manner.  I think Pushkin's hero is a very ambiguous character, purposely open to many different interpretations, and one of them is Cranko's Onegin. Haughty and ignorant, or just absent and distracted, absorbed in his inner conflict? Can he feel love or is it just delusion? "Bliss was so near", says Tatyana in stanza XLVII, I always thought these words are a key to Cranko's interpretation.

 

In Pushkin's stanza XLVI, by the way, we also find Tatyana's words how unhappy she is as a princess in St. Petersburg.

Edited by Angela
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17 hours ago, Mérante said:

As Bournonville explains countless times in his writings, when things get too dramatic in a ballet, SWITCH TO PANTOMIME.  And thereby avoid gesticulating with one's full body-weight, thereby descending into the frankly ludicrous. 

 

Cranko's design was to move on from the distinction between dance scenes and pantomime, to fuse the both in a dramatic dance. He wanted to tell a story - and not only fairy tales, but also literature - in dance, in movement. You may not like that, but it is a development in dance history, like Wagner or the Verismo in opera, when they fused recitativo and arias into an "endless melody".

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12 minutes ago, Angela said:

I'm not so firm in the different Russian readings of "Eugene Onegin", but I think if you doubt even these words of Tatyana and her love for him, you have to read the whole book in a very cynical manner.  I think Pushkin's hero is a very ambiguous character, purposely open to many different interpretations, and of of them is Cranko's Onegin. Haughty and ignorant, or just absent and distracted, absorbed in his inner conflict? Can he feel love or is it just delusion? "Bliss was so near", says Tatyana in stanza XLVII, I always thought these words are a key to Cranko's interpretation.

In Pushkin's stanza XLVI, by the way, we also find Tatyana's words how unhappy she is as a princess in St. Petersburg.

 

Very nicely put Angela. The book has the greatest spread of interpretative translations of any I know. If one checks the (many and various) versions of the poem in English - including the extraordinary one by Nabokov, so different to all others - one can see the considerable variety of meaning contained in Pushkin's work.

 

Beware all those, like myself, who don't have enough Russian to read the original in all its glory. Here for example is Kasper Holten - formerly of the ROH - on the challenge in relation to the opera:-

 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/02/eugene-onegin-unchain-heart

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2 hours ago, Angela said:

 

The ballet is John Cranko's interpretation of Pushkins poem.

 

Isn't it actually Cranko's interpretation of Tchaikovsky's opera?

 

Thanks for the reminder that in the novel Tatiana is unhappy in St. Petersburg.  That's clearly not the case in the ballet - or at least not in everyone's interpretations.

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13 minutes ago, alison said:

Isn't it actually Cranko's interpretation of Tchaikovsky's opera?

 

I was interested in Alison’s comment and found this on the ROH’ website by Gavin Plumley:

“Tchaikovsky’s opera had a even wider impact in 1965, when its structure - rather than Pushkin’s verse novel - became the inspiration for John Cranko’s ballet.”
https://www.roh.org.uk/news/exploring-the-origins-of-eugene-onegin-and-onegin

 

I know John Cranko first had the idea for a ballet when he choreographed dances for Tchaikovky’s Eugene Onegin but what is the evidence to suggest that the Opera was his basis for the ballet rather than Pushkin?

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1 hour ago, alison said:

That's clearly not the case in the ballet - or at least not in everyone's interpretations.

 

If I remember correctly, Marcia Haydée never smiled during the Gremin pdd, it was a demonstration of trust and reliance, but not of love. Oh how much that changed with today's Tatyanas...

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34 minutes ago, alison said:

JohnS - the fact that the ballet closely follows the plot of the opera rather than of the novel is certainly indicative.

 

Indeed.  With the exception of the absence of the opera's Act 1, Scene 3 (when Onegin rejects Tatyana), the scenes of the ballet cover the same material in the same order.  Even the opera's dance set pieces are closely mirrored in the structure of the ballet.

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Many thanks Alison and Ruth.

But didn’t Cranko revise his ballet, omitting a prologue where Onegin was at his uncle’s deathbed and Tatiana kissing her children goodnight? There may be very good reasons for such revisions but it suggests to me that he wasn’t simply following the Opera.

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I don't have the libretto easily accessible, but I thought Onegin at one point early on sings about how dull it is in the country, waiting for his uncle to die?  And quite likely there may be some reference to Gremin and Tatiana's children later on.  RuthE will probably know.

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12 minutes ago, alison said:

I don't have the libretto easily accessible, but I thought Onegin at one point early on sings about how dull it is in the country, waiting for his uncle to die?  And quite likely there may be some reference to Gremin and Tatiana's children later on.  RuthE will probably know.

 

You're right about the first part, though it's in the past tense; Onegin has been bored stiff by sitting at his uncle's deathbed, but the uncle is now dead.  There's no later reference in the opera to Tatyana and Gremin's children; Gremin simply tells Onegin that they have been married two years.

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3 hours ago, JohnS said:

But didn’t Cranko revise his ballet, omitting a prologue where Onegin was at his uncle’s deathbed and Tatiana kissing her children goodnight?

 

True. I don't know when exactly he cut them, he kept changing the ballet after the premiere. But they were gone in the new version which premiered in 1967.

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40 minutes ago, FionaE said:

Is there another cast change for tomorrow, Wed 12th February?  
 

I have seen Nunez & Bolle have been rehearsing Onegin today at ROH ...... (Instagram posts)

If my Spanish is correct this is a photo of Nela and Bolle dancing Onegin in Milan (“it was a beautiful night in Milan seeing Onegin ... those situations that remain there, saved as jewels” ) 


if i’m wrong then perhaps we’ll see them tomorrow night.... 

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Well this is interesting.   Is Reece injured?  
 

Or because Marianela is replacing Natalia, was she able to ask for Roberto Bolle to partner her?   I see Marianela’s current Onegin RB partner, Ryo Hirano is not available as he is performing elsewhere in Japan this week.

 


 

 

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I am so glad I got to see Clarke and Osipova together.  Amazing Marianela, dancing this ballet with three different partners over a very short run.  Quite a feat!  Whilst very sorry not to be seeing Clarke/Osipova tonight, I am very much looking forward to this pairing. 

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Nuñez and Bolle recently danced Onegin together at La Scala.  You may remember they were rehearsing Onegin together in Milan on World Ballet Day 2019.

 

Marianela has explained on Instagram ...

 

She wishes Reece a speedy recovery, and says Roberto just happened to be at ROH to rehearse something else.  
 

Serendipity for the audience tonight!  Enjoy.  

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3 hours ago, FionaE said:

I see Marianela’s current Onegin RB partner, Ryo Hirano is not available as he is performing elsewhere in Japan this week.

 

Wow he's busy....he only  got back from Tokyo  last week after this  http://www.royal-ballet-stars.jp/ ,  and then performed Onegin on Saturday.

Where is he performing in Japan this week? 

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