By RONALD BLUM Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — Ralph Fiennes ‘ vision of “Eugene Onegin” was cinematic.
A three-time Academy Award nominee and a Tony Award winner, Fiennes made his opera directing debut Monday at the Paris Opera’s ornate Palais Garnier. Using bright lighting near the proscenium as other characters receded to the rear in faded illumination, he controlled focus as a movie director determining the audience’s view.
“It became clear that his priorities are quite cinematic as if everything is kind of in close up,” mezzo-soprano Susan Graham said.
Based on Alexander Pushkin’s 1833 novel, “Onegin” was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a libretto the composer co-wrote with Konstantin Shilovsky. Baritone Boris Pinkhasovich stars as Onegin, soprano Ruzan Mantashyan as Tatyana and tenor Bogdan Volkov as Lensky. The entire 11-performance run through Feb. 27 is sold out. France TV will broadcast the opera on Feb. 9.
Conductor Semyon Byckov, announced three weeks ago as Paris Opera’s music director starting in August 2028, picked Fiennes to direct, writing in a text message: “Ralph is an immense actor and director, with a profound connection to Russian culture.”
“I was shocked, delighted and scared — principally delighted,” Fiennes said during a Jan. 6 public discussion. “My history with `Eugene Onegin’ goes back to when I was an acting student and the librarian of our academy, who was also a teacher, suggested I read Pushkin’s novel in verse in English because the character might appeal to me, maybe for an audition piece. I read it. I was completely transfixed by the poem and the character.”
A history with Pushkin
Fiennes portrayed the title character in the 1999 movie “Onegin,” directed by his sister Martha and co-starring Liv Tyler. He also directed “The White Crow,” a 2018 film about ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
“His telephone call woke up my love, or reawoke my love of Pushkin but of course, opera was new to me,” Fiennes said of Bychkov. “I had an instinctive feeling that with Semyon’s support and guidance I could take it on.”
Fiennes, 63, stars in the recently released movies “The Choral” and “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” and he returns to London theater in April with David Hare’s “Grace Pervades.”
He had seen director’s Rimas Tuminas’ stage dramatization of the Pushkin novel that portrayed the title character and Lensky simultaneously as two people, young and old. Fiennes decided to set the opera in the 1830s.
“If I tried to find a 20th or 21st century parallel, I felt I would be contriving something,” he said. “I didn’t go through some long analysis or philosophical dissection. I followed my gut.”
Jettisoning cliched opera acting
Graham, at 65 sang her first Russian-language role as Madame Larina, mother of Tatyana and Olga. When she met Fiennes in Los Angeles last spring, he emphasized eschewing grand opera gestures.
Mantashyan and Volkov were successful creating emotional tension — the tenor had tears streaming down his face during Lensky’s second-act aria.
“The scope of gesture is different on an opera stage certainly than it is in front of a film camera. You can do something with eyes in a film camera that doesn’t read past the third row in a theater,” Graham said. “We’re not lapsing into park and bark by any stretch of the imagination. It’s all still very real and very human movement. We try to avoid the spread arms of great, big opera singing, but sometimes you have great big operas singing.”
Pinkhasovich at times sang to the audience rather than his cast mates.
“In rehearsals I’ve asked the singers sometimes to speak the libretto so they are in touch with the conversations,” Fiennes said.
That was new for Mantashyan, who first read the novel in school as a 13-year-old.
“It’s strange for a singer to do, but I think during that you discover some new possibilities or new colors that you could use in your acting,” she said. “Of course, it comes from the actor’s perspective. He listens to music, but his first tool is in the text.”
Michael Levine’s sets were simple, trees on a backdrop and leaves on the ground for the Larin country estate, using that also as Lensky moved to the snowy outdoors, the crowd following, as he challenged Onegin to a duel in Act 2. The backdrop switched to Prince Gremin’s ballroom in St. Petersburg for the third act.
Costume designer Annemarie Woods’ outfits are not period accurate, with Fiennes emphasizing contemporary body language. Still, Mantashyan used a quill for Tatyana’s letter scene, Alessandro Carletti’s lighting accentuating her intense expressions.
Rehearsals started Dec. 1 and moved on stage Jan. 9, just 2 1/2 weeks before the opening
“The process is very fast and very, very messy and some people are very surprised by that,” Levine said. “I think maybe it’s helpful having me around saying: Don’t worry. Just keep pushing, keep working on all this time and detail and moving forward.”
Fiennes’s final vision was the shattered Onegin, collapsed, sobbing and clutching the shawl he had grabbed from Tatyana during their confrontation — the same shawl she had worn when they first met.