Eugene
Onegin

Her kan du se hele rollelista:

Publikumsrolleliste EUGEN ONEGIN 12.03.pdf

Patrik Ringborg, dirigent

Christof Loy, regissør

Raimund Orfeo Voigt, scenograf

Herbert Murauer, kostymedesigner

Olaf Winter, lysdesigner

Andreas Heise, koreograf

Dear audience,

Eugene Onegin is one of the most intense operas around. At the same time, it is an opera that is remarkably undramatic. Admittedly, there is a duel here, but otherwise, the drama happens among jam jars in the kitchen, between family members, and between senders and receivers of letters. Here we do not meet gods, kings, or heroes, but ordinary people with ordinary experiences: to be young and in love, to be a mother and worry, to be vulnerable in love and be rejected, to grow older and regret, to look back and stand by the choices one has made.

Tchaikovsky's incredibly beautiful music nevertheless makes us see both the grandeur and the drama of these emotions that you and I also encounter throughout our lives. In this way, the music creates a connection between us and the Russian countryside, which Pushkin portrayed in the novel on which the opera is based. The people we meet are filled with conflicted emotions. They all experience, in different ways, to lose something that is important to them – which also makes this one of the sorest operas I know of.

Unlike Verdi's A Masked Ball, which is staged at the Main Stage later this spring, Eugene Onegin isn't about big politics. Nevertheless, the big world bursts through the door of Larin's house. Our lives and stories are always part of a larger context, and Tchaikovsky's opera is a Russian artwork at a time when Russia is waging brutal warfare in Ukraine. We know that some of you, therefore, find it provoking that we are performing Eugene Onegin.

Let's be clear: We condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We have chosen to follow the Norwegian Theatre and Orchestra Association, which does not recommend boycotting works created in or around Russia, in the same way, that we do not boycott other historical works created by artists who have lived in other countries in a different era. We know this will arouse some reactions and perhaps hurt others. Nevertheless, we choose to play Eugene Onegin, because it is a work that is primarily about ourselves. It is a work showing that music and art that have entered our collective heritage are not owned by a country or empire, but by the people creating and experiencing it here and now. This is important to us, and something we should not forget.

German director Christof Loy made this production for us in 2020; he will also create our new version of Wagner's  Der Ring des Nibelungen for us in 2026–2028. The audience and critics alike found it to be a strong performance conveying the combination of beauty and tenderness lingering in the work. Loy's Eugene Onegin was the last opera production we had on stage before the pandemic. When it was planned to be back on stage in 2021, we were hit by the strike. We then postponed the production to 2023. Many of the singers are the same as in 2020 and 2021, but this time Ukrainian Iurii Samoilov sings the title role.

«The opera encourages us to be sensitive, aware, but also brave enough to open up so that in time we can experience and think in new ways,» Loy said in an interview before the premiere. Faced with both Eugene Onegin and conflicting emotions in 2023, that's exactly what we need to be.

The opera Eugene Onegin had its first premiere in Moscow in 1879. Peter Tchaikovsky's music for Aleksandr Pushkin's story is today part of the opera genre's standard repertoire. This spring alone, the work will be performed in Vienna, Brussels, Hamburg, and Zurich - in addition to Oslo.

But is it suitable to play Russian works now? After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the debate is about whether Russian cultural heritage should be boycotted.

The Norwegian Opera & Ballet invites you to a panel discussion in the Mediation Center in the Opera on Monday 20 February at 18.00-19.00. The event is free. The conversation is also recorded as a podcast and published afterward.

NB! Limited space in the Mediation Centre

Panel:

Julie Wilhelmsen, senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy, Ph.D. in political science and works with Russian foreign and security policy

Arve Hansen, adviser at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Ph.D. in East Slavic studies, and co-author of the book A War of Songs: Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Relations (2019)

Frode Helland, University of Oslo, dean of the Faculty of Humanities, professor of Nordic literature

Morten Gjelten, director of the Norwegian Theater and Orchestra Association (NTO)

The conversation is led by Christian Kjelstrup, publishing editor at Vigmostad & Bjørke