Astonishingly stirring evening from perfect principals and potential star
Onegin Royal Ballet, Covent Garden
Onegin is a lovely ballet that I always feel a need to stick up for. True, this adaptation by John Cranko of Pushkin’s 1833 verse novel (created in 1965 for Stuttgart Ballet) includes some banal passages for the corps. Also granted, Cranko’s more intimate sections seldom reach the white heat of inventiveness that blazes through Kenneth Macmillan’s fullevening tragedies. And yes, I’ll concede that its composite score – stitched together by composer Kurt-heinz Stolze from various pieces by Tchaikovsky – boasts none of the transporting highs that you find in the great Russian’s purpose-written ballets.
But never mind all that. Onegin tells a simple, tragic story – of female adoration and good sense, and male arrogance, obduracy, idiocy and regret – with focus, clarity, four strong lead characters and a minimum of peripheral ones; Jürgen Rose’s ravishing sets and costumes whisk you back to well-heeled 19th-century Russia; and Stolze’s efforts nevertheless do the job very nicely indeed.
Also, how not to get swept along by this tale when you have four performers of the calibre that the Royal Ballet served up on Saturday evening? Standing in for an injured Vadim Muntagirov, Reece Clarke was dancing Onegin, who foolishly spurns Tatiana’s advances and casually, fatally flirts with her younger sister, Olga (who’s also his friend Lensky’s fiancée).
And frankly, Clarke must have been terrified. Only a first soloist, he isn’t yet 24, and yet here he was opposite three of the Royal’s gold-standard principals (Natalia Osipova, Matthew Ball and Francesca Hayward). With more experience and confidence, the 6ft 2in Scot will be able to refine the slightly obvious, nose-in-the-air arrogance of Act I. The tallest member of the entire company, he has the height, looks and bearing to convince as Onegin without trying so hard.
But this was nevertheless a commendable debut by a star-in-themaking. Apparently undaunted, Clarke took the role, story and stage by the scruff of the neck, and partnered with both strength and intelligence – take the moment in Act I when he somehow seemed to be walking dismissively away from Osipova’s distraught Tatiana even before he had fully lowered her to the floor.
As Olga and Lensky, the unfeasibly beautiful pair of Matthew Ball and Francesca Hayward (also debuting as Olga here, and untainted by the disaster that was Cats) were mutual devotion incarnate, a couple with nothing wanting and everything to lose.
And as for Osipova, good grief. This most mercurial and unpredictable of principals here attuned every last synapse and sinew to Tatiana’s (by turns) shyness, sisterly affection, romantic infatuation and multifaceted desolation. Superficially, the 33-yearold looked more disappointed housewife than tormented teenager. But she delivered a performance of perfect artistic judgment, complete emotional generosity and unflinching physical fearlessness, and was so spent by the curtain call that it was as much as she could do to lift her face towards the audience.
With strong support from Gary Avis, Sian Murphy, Elizabeth Mcgorian and (one swiftly forgotten slip aside) the corps too, this was an astonishingly stirring evening. Perfect? Nyet. But unforgettable? Oh yes.