Summer school Onegin has audience in raptures
Eugene Onegin Dorset Opera, Coade Theatre, Bryanston
If you’ve ever fancied trying your chances as an opera star, then this could be the place for you – even if your hope of getting beyond the chorus line is slim. Founded in 1974, Dorset Opera is an annual two-week summer school, currently held in the bucolic grounds of Bryanston, that brings amateur singers and orchestral players together with top-flight professionals to create fully staged productions of a generally very high standard.
In the past, repertory has been ambitious and even arcane – problematic pieces seldom heard in London such as Erkel’s Hunyadi Laszlo and Massenet’s Hérodiade have featured. This year, they’ve played it a little safer at the box-office, pairing Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with Verdi’s Macbeth, led by two casts of principal singers that Opera North or Welsh National Opera might envy. I heard the first performance of Onegin, and very good it was too. This is an opera about romantic dreams and wasted opportunities originally written for conservatoire students, and its challenges were encompassed with ease here, to the delight of an enraptured audience.
Paul Carr’s visually simple staging had an unpretentious honesty that I found refreshing. The handsome costumes were in Pushkinian period, and aside from the by now regulation appearance of Lensky’s ghost, there were no interpolated bright ideas. You could smile at the rather homely country dancing, but there was a directness that exposed the opera’s emotional arc – nothing was hammed up or phoney. I only wish that proper intervals had fallen where Tchaikovsky specified, after Onegin’s rejection and after Lensky’s death. The outer sense of time passing and the drama’s inner rhythm is disrupted if the only break comes after the Larins’ ball.
Carr’s brother Gavin conducted: not surprisingly, the orchestra’s undernourished string section had its vinegary moments and the horns occasionally wobbled, but its labours were otherwise valiant. There was nothing wrong with the tempi and the brew was brought to a splendid boil in the final confrontation.
The visiting singers gave it their all. Outstanding was Anna Patalong, who made an enchanting Tatyana, warmtoned, shy yet ardent, glowing through the passion of the Letter Scene yet tender and vulnerable too. Mark Stone was urbanely assured in the title-role; Luke Daniel, a graduate of the summer school, was a sympathetic and sensitive Lensky, if one whose intonation wasn’t always secure.
Diana Montague (Madam Larina), Fiona Kimm (Filipyevna) and Brindley Sherratt (Prince Gremin) drew on considerable experience to offer impeccably focused cameos, and it was a special pleasure to witness David Rendall coming out of stage retirement to deliver Monsieur Triquet’s couplets so neatly and stylishly. The exhilaratingly youthful chorus excelled in diction and tone: they are the heart of the matter here, and it was a heart that beat firmly. Eugene Onegin isn’t a difficult piece to stage successfully, but Dorset Opera can justly be proud to have moulded such an accomplished and satisfying performance with only 10 days of rehearsal.