Onéguine at Opéra Bastille

With Onéguine, John Cranko has conceived one of the key ballets of the repertoire. Inspired by Alexander Pushkin's verse-novel, he has streamlined the story and focused the intrigue on the feelings and relationships of the four principal characters. Unfinished loves, duels and regrets punctuate the tragic tale of Onegin – a disillusioned dandy who is the architect of his own misery –, the romantic Tatiana, the poet Lensky and his fiancée Olga. Whilst John Cranko faithfully follows the storyline of Tchaikovsky’s opera of the same name, he illustrates the ballet with various extracts from the same composer. Created in 1965 for the Stuttgart Ballet, the work entered the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet in 2009. The elegant sets and costumes by Jürgen Rose recreate the 19th century splendour of the Russian aristocracy and enhance an incisively written and profoundly theatrical ballet infused with a gentle melancholy.