Inside the rehearsals for Eugene Onegin:
Irina Shishkova (Olga)

Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin occupies a unique position in Russian culture: its universal popularity takes nothing away from its multitude of meanings and inexhaustible potential for new interpretations. Everyone sees the story from their own viewpoint: viewers’ relationships with the characters and their choices and fate vary depending on their age, emotional experience, and intrinsic maturity. It was interesting to talk to those involved in the new production of Onegin and try to understand how the performers and members of the production team are interpreting Vasily Barkhatov’s directorial vision, especially as in his production, individual roles have been painstakingly written not only for the main performers, but also for the members of the choir and the extras. Over several weeks of rehearsals, those involved in the performance must adapt their personal relationship to the opera, founded on their experience of performing previous stagings of the work, to the latest approach. Vasily Barkhatov sees Onegin as a subtle psychological drama, drawing on the fact that Tchaikovsky was a contemporary of Chekhov. The director’s method for untangling the meanings hidden within the opera does not require a precise setting in terms of the period or the social context; the correct degree of conventionalism allows both the nature of the emotions and the pressure points of society to come further to the fore. Anyone interested in the upcoming premiere will be able to find out the myriad opinions of the performers and uncover how they develop under the influence of the director’s vision in their daily rehearsals.

The part of Olga is played by Irina Shishkova:

“The Olga in this production is completely different from the Olga in Andriy Zholdak’s version. Indeed, she seems more like one of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. My heroine lives with her sister, Tanya, who is always reading, feeling sorry for herself, and dreaming; with a nanny; and with their mother, who inhabits the world of her memories. All four women are unhappy in their own way, and have to endure one another’s presence in a single country home. At one point, a group of drunken peasants arrives and almost destroys the house. Olga is terrified: she cries her eyes out and breaks any cup that ends up in her hands, and her instinctive wish is to jump on her bicycle and pedal as fast as she can away from this madhouse. My heroine expects decisive action from Lensky — an embrace, a proposal, or an escape — but he just reads her poems, all of the same highly dubious artistic merit.”