American Ballet Theatre Onegin Review
June 21, 2024 | Metropolitan Opera House – New York, NY, USA
There are two love letters from the ballet Onegin itself – one from Tatiana, the leading lady, to Eugene Onegin, the leading man and, later, his reply to her. But there is also a third – an indestructible one without words for only those who see it.
Like a love at first sight, ABT’s Onegin checks off all the boxes for me during the search for my ideal ballet:
- Alexander Pushkin’s poetic novel about unattainable love as rich material for the stage – check!
- John Cranko’s consistent choreographic genius – check!
- Principal dancers who dance out their characters with fidelity – check!
- The right balance of ballet technique and ballet pantomime – check!
- Lavish costumes designed for all-night waltzing and dazzling – check!
- And Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s soul-enriching music that just makes you want to get up and dance – check and check!
American Ballet Theatre Onegin Review
Cranko’s Onegin tells a story that begins in an idyllic Russian village in 1825. Tatiana (Christine Shevchenko) is reading a romance novel on the floor, and her younger sister Olga (Skylar Bandt) is blowing kisses in the wind because she’s newly engaged.
Eight young ladies grand jeté around town in floral dresses before Olga’s fiancé, Lensky (Joo Won Ahn) arrives with his new friend Eugene Onegin (Cory Stearns), the villain protagonist whom Tatiana cannot take her eyes off of. A classic good-girl-who-falls-for-the-bad-boy story ballet.
Lensky and Olga dance out their joyful reunion in warm matching colors. Ahn performs a grand allegro with adagio quality, and Brandt’s crisp footwork, more playful, suggests that the couple balances each other out. Choreographically, they demonstrate the strength of their relationship with movements that illustrate trust, joy and care; like when she retrogrades her grand jeté over his shoulders.
Meanwhile, Onegin dresses in all black, mysteriously dashing but troubled, aimlessly wandering around the countryside preferring to be alone. In contrast, Tatiana appears nothing like her high society crush as she sweetly watches him from afar wearing a white dress with simple sky blue embellishments. When they enter the stage, there is an obvious gap between them.
Before you know it, the lovely Tchaikovsky music turns dark, sending the urbane Onegin into a self-consuming “woe is me” solo. He puts his hand on his head as gesture about his stressful life during a grand port de bras, all the while, not looking at Tatiana once. On the contrary, she gazes at him, enamored by his charm, and extends her hand towards him as if she’s reaching inside his heart.
The corps de ballet returns with bountiful leaps of joy. Olga and Lensky lead the pack down the diagonal pathway with technical amazement, generating wild admiration at the Met Opera House.
Alone in her bedroom, Tatiana tosses and turns in her bed and dreams of Onegin, projecting an ideal version of him in a romantic pas de deux.
Stearns and Shevchenko’s chemistry is simply perfection. They take the audience into a whirlwind of risky lifts and trust falls that require the most skilled dancers to pull off. Stearns catches, swings, kisses and penchés Shevchenko like a true prince. She swoons into his arms and their mutual fondness is clear.
Tatiana’s dream dance with Onegin is more connected, trusting and closer than their interactions in reality.
When Onegin enters Tatiana’s birthday party in Act II with music matching his tension-filled gait, an old man greets him but is met with complete oblivion. I love how Cranko captures the complexity of Onegin’s character through this momentary pantomime.
Later, Shevchenko dances a sorrowful solo with port de bras so lovely it can make one cry.
Playing cards is an easy task anyone can do, but it takes a seasoned principal dancer to make us believe that Onegin is such a sinister man while doing so very little. He slams his hand on the table which scares Tatiana off, then steals Olga and playfully partners her in a puppet-like pas de deux that will soon lead into a crime of passion.
Stearn’s acting is so believable that it wouldn’t surprise me if his name has become synonymous with Onegin.
And in his calm solo before an inevitable duel, Ahn glides his landings in 5th position to 4th before taking off for his smooth pirouettes and leaps around as if gravity no longer exists. He falls back from genuflection before sliding to his left side, perhaps crying out to God before facing his dear friend in a do or die situation.
The final act of Onegin takes place many years later at an aristocratic ballroom of Prince Gremin (Joseph Markey) where a majestic corps de ballet overshadows the tragedy from the earlier act.
Stearns, with the same charm but more gray hair, dances with six regal young ladies at the ball who choreographically fill in the negative spaces between themselves and him demonstrating how, despite Onegin’s emotional unavailability and unethical disregard for others, his power to attract the opposite sex is still of no issue.
Prince Gremin and his wife, the same Tatiana who once so loved Onegin, waltz elegantly echoing the way Olga and Lensky once danced lovingly at the opening of the ballet.
One signature ABT staging technique is the utilization of quick storytelling across the downstage wings. It is the equivalent of a montage in movies where the main characters develop in quick speed, without telling everything in realtime.
I remember seeing this clever montage technique to fast track the heartbreak of Odette at the lake in the fourth act of Kevin McKenzie’s Swan Lake.
In Onegin, past memories flood back to haunt the title character while we get a refresher of the plot, i.e. Onegin reminiscing about Tatiana when she fell in love with him in the countryside, Olga and Lensky kissing, and Onegin killing Lensky.
It takes more than dance skills to perform this ballet, especially for Onegin and Tatiana; the dancers must become the characters.
Indeed, Shevchenko is Tatiana, and Stearns is Onegin. And I must say, the final bedroom scene between them deserves an Academy Award.
What makes Onegin so appealing is its relatable storyline of how sometimes love is not enough, that only time will give one the strength to let go and move on.
Beyond question, the audience and I support the heroine’s decision to cut ties with someone she really shouldn’t be with. It is hard, but she did it. The ballet marks a gold standard for how a masterpiece should look, sound and feel like.
And I confess: I’m in love with it all.
Featured Photo for this American Ballet Theatre Onegin review of Christine Shevchenko as Tatiana in John Cranko’s Onegin. Photo by Rosalie O’Connor.
