Page 212 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

explained, that this lost repertoire wasn’t a thing apart from

European culture, but something that was ripped bodily from it after

1933.
Up at the Festival Theatre, the Komische Oper performed Kosky’s

raw, hyper-real staging of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Set in a

woodland glade, drenched in turn by sunlight, mist and summer rain,

it could almost have been imagined by Lars von Trier. Flaming

torches turned a ball scene into a sinister midsummer rite, while

Kosky’s decision to throw the focus entirely on to the roiling
hormones of the two young couples worked because it was so

unsparingly sincere. Vocal beauty came second to dramatic

intensity, and Asmik Grigorian’s calf-eyed, desperately fragile

Tatyana more than compensated for clumsy scene changes, for

Kosky’s characterisation of Lensky (Oleksiy Palchykov) as an

abusive drunk, and for orchestral playing under Ainars Rubikis that
veered from quiet passion to honking coarseness, sometimes within

the same bar.

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