Eugene Onegin © Wild Arts Opera 2025
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is often described as an “intimate epic”: a tale of private desires set against sweeping social forces. In Wild Arts Opera’s chamber-scale staging at Opera Holland Park on Thursday evening, that paradox was at the fore. With conductor Orlando Jopling leading the Wild Arts Ensemble, and direction by Dominic Dromgoole, this production sought to pare away grandeur in favour of immediacy — a gamble that mostly paid off, though not without a few risks along the way.
The reduced orchestration proved one of the evening’s revelations. Strings and winds, pared back to chamber size, lent a transparency to Tchaikovsky’s score that foregrounded inner voices too often submerged in the plushness of a full pit. In the opening act especially, the textures felt intimate — more akin to a salon than a theatre. Jopling drew finely judged pacing, avoiding indulgent rubato in favour of fluid momentum.
Where some productions wallow in luxuriant sweep, this Onegin breathed with conversational naturalism as the composer stipulated. The effect was especially striking in the ‘Letter Scene’, which felt less like a set-piece aria and more like a psychological monologue overheard in real time.
Galina Averina’s Tatyana was the undisputed star. Her soprano, bright and flexible at the top yet weighted with darker hues, charted Tatyana’s transformation from bookish dreamer to dignified matron with rare credibility. In the Letter Scene, she balanced girlish impetuosity with trembling vulnerability, her pianissimi still carrying across the open space. By the final act, as a married princess the voice had ripened into steel: her rejection of Onegin rang with both sorrow and moral authority.
Timothy Nelson’s Onegin offered a cooler portrait. Vocally secure — his baritone gleaming in the upper reaches — he cultivated an aloof stage presence that sometimes-risked detachment. Yet in the closing confrontation, when icy composure cracked into desperation, the payoff was devastating.
Xavier Hetherington’s Lensky nearly stole the middle act. His Act II aria was sung with unforced lyricism, the long phrases spun in seamless arcs that gave his impending doom tragic inevitability.
Emma Hodkinson’s Olga supplied an engaging foil: earthy, playful, and possessed of a mezzo warmth that offset Averina’s sharper tone.
Supporting roles Hannah Sandison as Madame Larina, Siôn Goronwy resonant Prince Gremin were finely etched, adding characterful colour without breaking the drama’s intimacy.
Dromgoole’s direction in his first opera favoured symbolism over literalism. With a backdrop of net curtains on the upper stage and four benches on the lower stage atrium and costumes in period style, the set was uncluttered and clear for all the emotions to blossom – good or bad! At its best, the design externalised the characters’ inner turmoil – Onegin looming spectrally during Tatyana’s reveries, or the stage literally turning away as Lensky faced his fate.
The show has toured to great success and in its first production at Opera Holland Park has played to sold out houses. The direction is busy with the majority of the cast multitasking occasionally without a seeming sense of purpose.
The constant motion risked diffusing attention, especially in quieter passages where stillness might have served better. But Siân Williams choreography was more effective: party scenes bustled with miniature dramas, while subtle movement in the chorus gave a sense of life unfolding around the principals.
What emerged most strongly was Eugene Onegin’s tension between impetuous youth and the weight of consequence. By scaling down the orchestration and presenting the text in a fresh English translation by Siofra Dromgoole, Wild Arts made the characters’ choices feel immediate, even conversational. For some, this may sacrifice the sweeping Russianness audiences expect; but the trade-off was emotional directness.
The intimacy of Holland Park’s semi-open space added another layer. With dusk falling and city sounds faintly audible, the opera’s themes of missed chances and fleeting time resonated all the more.
Wild Arts Opera’s Eugene Onegin at Opera Holland Park was not a flawless evening — the staging sometimes overstated its point, and Nelson’s Onegin, while vocally strong, could have revealed more shades of humanity earlier on. Yet the cumulative effect was deeply moving. Averina’s incandescent Tatyana anchored the production, and the chamber forces revealed Tchaikovsky’s score as a work of delicacy as much as passion.
A production of intimacy, risk, and striking immediacy — proving that even in reduced scale, Onegin can break hearts.
David Buchler, Opera Spy
