Onegin, Ballet by John Cranko
John Cranko's balletic version of Onegin, with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is a delight for audiences at Rome's superb Teatro Costanzi in a production that brings this lavish story to life. Cranko developed the idea for a ballet based on Alexander Pushkin's famous novel, Eugene Onegin, first published in a serial format from 1825, in the 1950s. The South African dancer and choreographer suggested the idea to the Royal Ballet in London after he had been involved with a production of Tchaikovsky's operatic version of the story, also called Eugene Onegin. Having been turned down, he took the idea to the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany which resulted in a world premiere on 13 April 1965 at the Staatstheater Stuttgart.
Although the music for Cranko's version of Onegin will be instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Tchaikovsky's work, the score is very different from the composer's renowned opera. For one thing, the music for the ballet was arranged by Kurt-Heinz Stolze, a German composer born in 1926. He had previously collaborated with Cranko on a ballet called L’Estro Armonico which took the works of Antonio Vivaldi as its inspiration. For Cranko's choreography in Onegin, Stolze chose to ignore the entire operatic score for Eugene Onegin and, instead, made use of Tchaikovsky's solo piano pieces, some of the much lesser-known works, such as The Seasons, Op 37a. Several themes were taken from other Tchaikovsky-written operas and symphonic orchestrations and rearranged by Stolze to give the ballet an entirely novel, yet familiar, feel when it was first produced. Cranko went on to revise the ballet a few times until 1967 when the version that is typically performed today was finalised.
The story in the ballet is much the same as the novel which Pushkin wrote in poetic verse. The title character, Eugene Onegin, is a proud and impulsive man, characteristics that have deprived him of the true love of Tatiana. Over the course of several years, Onegin seeks to regain Tatiana's affection which he had cast away. He discovers that it is too late to change the events of the past and things get worse as his temperament leads him from one personal setback to the next. In this context, Cranko's choreography is in the rich tradition of Russian Romanticism, making emotional demands of the performers which means they must combine passion with technical ability.
This production of Onegin at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Rome's wonderful opera house, will thrill fans of ballet with a stupendous interpretation of Tchaikovsky's musical mastery.