Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
February 28, 2014

Eugene Onegin, based on Pushkin’s verse novel of the same name, is without doubt the ultimate ‘road not taken’ opera – some would say the perfect night out for anyone wanting to wallow in their own mid-life crisis. Tchaikovsky knew a thing or two about melancholy, and so too it would seem does Kasper Holten, Artistic Director of Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House (both were 39-year-olds when they tackled this fevered tale and love and loss.) Now Sydney has a chance to see some first-rate European opera as Holten’s hyper-intelligent, deeply moving production arrives from London with a clutch of international talent supplementing a fine Australian cast.

The staging is essentially naturalistic, as befits this most Chekhovian of operas, set inside an imposing 19th-century Russian country house beautifully realised in Mia Stensgaard’s stately designs and revealingly illuminated by Wolfgang Goebbel’s  detailed lighting plot. All is not quite as it seems, however, because the director has a crucial device up his sleeve. The latter part of the opera takes place a number of years after Onegin coldly rejects Tatyana’s youthful declaration of love. Holten chooses to show us the whole messy affair in...