What: Eugene Onegin
Where: Aotea Centre
Patrick Nolan's staging of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for NBR New Zealand Opera wears its elegance with ease.
The eternal ironies of Pushkin's tale were played out on spectacular yet sleek sets that betrayed Genevieve Blanchett's architectural background, especially in a ballroom scene where characters waltzed between towering walls that might have reached to Heaven itself.
Yet the Australian director could catch our breath with the simplest touch such as a surge of dawn after Tatyana's Letter Scene, boosted by a magnificent Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.
For many, the drawcard will be the Tatyana of Anna Leese, who brought intensity and focus to Tchaikovsky's lush lyricism. These served her well in the Letter Scene, which, for some reason, had the singer unduly constrained behind her writing desk.
Nolan's feeling for ensemble was apparent from the start with Patricia Wright's motherly Madame Larina presiding over her family. The first act quartet was set with utter naturalness, alerting us to Kristen Darragh's fine mezzo, used to good effect as the capricious sister, Olga.
Early on, too, you realised what a privilege it was having Lensky played by a Russian tenor, Roman Shulackoff, especially in his great Act Two aria, one of the opera's many songs of regret.
Onegin himself is a more problematic role, a character described by Tchaikovsky as "a cold dandy penetrated to the marrow with worldly bon ton".
Nolan has done some humanising here, which justified some impressive soul-baring in the final scene from William Dazeley: "Despair, regret! Oh, bitter destiny," were the baritone's closing words and they cut to the heart.
Martin Snell's noble Prince Gremin was also extremely moving in his world-weary aria on the power of love.
The energetic chorus added lashings of local colour and Nolan worked them hard; at one point they danced a dashing cotillion as well as fulfilling singing duties.
Choreographer Timothy Gordon deserves his share of credit (even if his chair-dance routine during the Polonaise was a mite mystifying) and Bernie Tan's ingeniously atmospheric lighting created more than one coup de theatre.
Finally, conductor Alexander Polianichko brought the spirit of the Mariinsky Theatre to the Aotea Centre, inspiring all under him to create an unmissable night at the opera.
