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Eugene Onegin at the ENO

I was quite looking forward to see ENO's Eugene Onegin - as it's a co-production with The Met.



The first disappointment was that Toby Spence (Lensky) had lost his voice, so did his understudy. So Adrian Thompson (originally Monsieur Triquet) stepped up to sing - but from the side (second disappointment) as Toby Spence was "acting" the part on stage. So there was this bizarre situation where in Act 2 Scene 2 (Duel) we had Toby Spence "acting" opposite Audun Iversen (Onegin, not bad - but a bit wooden in his acting) and a third voice coming off stage (third disappointment).

The stage set was great (Tom Pye) and the direction (Deborah Warner) had enough details and finesse to make the whole story believable. Amanda Echalaz who sang Tatyana was on form and the letter scene was very well sung. The monologue of Prince Gremin (Brindley Sherratt) was grounded. Ed Gardner, once again, held it all together.

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