Inside the rehearsals for Eugene Onegin:
Suren Maksutov (Lensky)

Suren Maksutov is rehearsing for the part of Lensky:

“Lensky — the way I play him — is only truly a poet during his last aria, just before he dies. The rest of the time he is merely playing at being a poet. In our production, Lensky sees poetry as a means of self-expression, a way of attracting the attention of those around him, and a tried and tested seduction technique. He is well aware of the fact that ‘women fall in love through their ears’, and he therefore writes poems for Olga and reads them out to her, constantly checking to see what she thinks: ‘How was that? Did you like it? Did I do well?’”

“He does the same thing socially. Lensky attempts to come across as a poet because it is fashionable to be one, and because it allows him to do things that would be difficult to explain otherwise. The episode in which he challenges Onegin to a duel is nothing more than a manifestation of the desire for people to take pity on him, the act of an attention-seeker. Nobody actually believes that the duel is going to take place. And then when push comes to shove and the duel goes ahead, as a result of pressure from the people around the two men, my hero is unable even to imagine himself aiming his gun at his best friend. After all, the two men were genuinely very close to one another, and trusted one another greatly. Only a true friend has it in him to say, ‘Look, your bride-to-be is very unattractive; she isn’t a good match for you at all. If you want my advice, I think you should court someone else.’”