“Happiness was once so near, so near!”

In the middle of 2025 season, La Scala theater in Milan stages Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s
Evgeny Onegin, inspired by the famous novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin, a
masterpiece of Russian literature. The work is one of the most poignant of the entire
operatic repertoire: Tchaikovsky draws from the simplicity of the story, a drama of solitude,
creating immortal characters, Onegin, Tatiana, Lensky, with their youthful desires,
expressed and unreciprocated passions, lost loves and regrets.

For this new production, the theater relies on the baton of the young Timur Zangiev, who
had already been called in 2022 to replace the famous Valery Gergiev, kicked out of La
Scala for his pro-Putin positions. The cast is made up entirely of Russian artists, we don’t
know if by chance or by deliberate choice of the Management; it all sounds a bit strange in
a theater that had seen singers such as Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe di Stefano, Ettore
Bastianini triumph in this opera and in 1986 had admired the debut as Tatiana of Mirella
Freni, destined to become a historical interpreter of the unhappy girl.

The greatest interest of the production therefore lay in the direction entrusted to Mario
Martone, who was responsible for some of the most beautiful shows recently seen in the
Piermarini hall, such as Cavalleria/Pagliacci, Andrea Chenier, Rigoletto; worth mentioning
also the beautiful scenes by Margherita Palli and the costumes by Ursula Patzak.
Martone creates a very interesting staging, with great moments of pure theater, even if not
always perfectly focused. The director chooses a contemporary setting, and the entire
show is performed outdoors, to underline the importance of nature in the Russian
composer’s music. The first act is the most successful, describing the immense beauty of
Russian summer, with moon, stars and skies changing in color over the endless
countryside, the yellow wheat fields, the processions, the farmers’ festivals. The only
exception is Tatiana’s small room, a little space in which there are only books, where the
girl listens to her songs on headphones; in this unique interior, Tatiana writes her love
letter to the “beloved” Onegin, in one of the most musically famous and engaging pages of
the entire work.

The second act takes place in winter during the festival in the square of a village, with poor
farmers, soldiers and grey cold skies; here will take place the deadly clash between the
two friends Onegin and Lensky, a tragedy symbolized by the earthquake that destroys
Tatiana’s room and the great fire that devours all the books on stage, an obvious
reference to the ongioing war between Russian and Europe. On these smoking ruins
Lensky sings his most famous aria, “kuda kuda vi udalilis”, a dramatic farewell to life and
youthness “Where have you gone, o golden days of my spring?”. For the following scene
Martone replaces the duel foreseen in the libretto with a “Russian roulette”, a choice which has given rise to many protests at debut, but which instead turns out to be very strong on a
dramatic level, with the gun nervously changing hands between the two friends until the
fatal shot explodes killing the dreamer Lensky..

The third act is the least successful, with an enormous red curtain, which offers a
transparent glimpse of the dance party in St. Petersburg, with the progressive
disappearance of all the objects and characters until the scene remains bare, and against
the background of a black curtain the farewell between Tatiana and Onegin dramatically
takes place.

The cast deployed is decidedly good, even if a comparison would not be possible, with the
great interpreters of this opera and with the highest expectations people have from a
famous theater such as La Scala. However, it may be useful to remember that
Tchaikovsky wrote the opera for the students of the Moscow Conservatory, having written
in a letter “for nothing in the world would I hand Onegin over to the directors of the imperial
theaters of St. Petersburg and Moscow”! The best in the field is Dmitry Korchak’s Lensky,
perfectly immersed in the character, who manages to find magnificent accents and a
thousand colors in the great aria, who receives the biggest deserved open-stage applause
of the evening. The protagonist of Alexey Markov is excellent, with a beautiful and solid
baritone voice, careful to vocally and scenically underline all the neuroses of this bored
provincial “dandy”. In the role of Tatiana, the soprano Aida Garifullina does not have the
vocal weight that the role would require, or at least that the performance tradition would
require. However, the stage interpretation is almost perfect, it is difficult to imagine a more
beautiful protagonist, in her transition from a naive country girl to a sophisticated princess.
The Russian soprano must be credited with having immersed herself completely in the
character, believing in it completely with a total scenic and vocal identification.

Unfortunately, Prince Gremin of Dmitry Ulianov is unlistenable, badly ruining his famous
aria on the beauty of late love. Excellent performances by Elmina Hasan as Olga and
Alisa Kolosova as Larina, two singers with very important vocal gifts. Also worth
mentioning is the cameo of Julia Gertseva as Filippevna.
Timur Zangiev’s conduction is of an excellent level, despite the “tempi” are sometimes too
dilated; the melancholy that runs through the work is fully expressed by the musical
concertation, just as the many dances that are played in the three acts, that are performed
with full expressiveness and rythm. The great variety of dynamics and colors should also
be noted, which allow the great value of the first parts of the orchestra to be highlighted, as
in the case of the poignant oboe solos in the great scene of the letter.
Big applause for everyone at the second performance we attended

CAST:
Larina: Alisa Kolosova
Tat’jana: Aida Garifullina
Olga: Elmina Hasan
Filipp’evna: Julia Gertseva

Evgenij Onegin: Alexey Markov
Lenskij: Dmitry Korchak
Prince Gremin: Dmitry Ulyanov
A captain: Huan Hong Li
Zareckij: Oleg Budaratskiy
Triquet: Yaroslav Abaimov

Conductor: Timur Zangiev
Staging: Mario Martone