Inside the rehearsals for Eugene Onegin:
Vladislav Sulimskiy (Onegin)

Vladislav Sulimsky is rehearsing for the part of Onegin:

“I’ve performed Onegin in different productions, but I can say without any doubt that Barkhatov’s Eugene Onegin stands apart from the others. Take the beginning of the third act for example. When Onegin — the urban dandy and habitué of the city balls — returns to St. Petersburg, he sees an orchestra playing and thinks it’s a reception for him. But alas, times have changed, and nobody now recognizes this man who was the talk of the town twenty years earlier. We come face to face with the new luminaries, the Gremins. No one needs Onegin any more. As for Tatiana, she is completely changed, a stranger to him now. Onegin is aware that Tatiana might have been his, and not Gremin’s, but also that he would never have been able to give her what she now has. This troubles him enormously. It’s as if Onegin and Tatiana have switched roles. Tatiana does, in fact, still have feelings for Onegin, but she isn’t prepared to let go of the life she has built for herself. In truth, Onegin is a much more tragic character than Tatiana. After all, tragedy struck Tatiana when she was still young, while Onegin’s tragedy visits him much later in life.”