travelswithalice

July 20, 2017

Eifman Ballet's Onegin at The Bolshoi

Let me explain. The evening's ballet was a mistake. Mine.

In my rush to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform, in my eagerness to see inside of the Bolshoi's Main Theatre, and in my excitement to finally see a performance of Eugene Onegin even if the opera- not the ballet- would've been my first choice, I neglected to do my homework on this one.

The blurbs just trumpeted that Onegin was returning to the Bolshoi for the first time in seven years! To be sure, there were more dramatic happenings to talk about, particularly last week's shock cancellation, three days before the scheduled world premiere, of the much-anticipated new ballet Nureyev.

I didn't know that the Bolshoi Ballet company was leaving on tour the very next day- spoiler alert! I didn't know that I was not going to a Bolshoi Ballet performance. I didn't know of Boris Eifman or his Eifman Ballet.

I wonder what Pushkin would make of this retelling of his beloved tale. His soaring tale of unrequited young love, ennui, tragedy, regret, and honour among Russia's privileged landowning set.

This was more shocking than I expected, even after reading of the anguish that Pushkin devotees felt about John Cranko's alleged trivialization of Eugene Onegin by turning it into a ballet.

Well, the Eifman Ballet really went to town on this one!

Eifman plays fast and loose with Pushkin's, or for that matter, Cranko's Onegin. The character, here redrawn as an inelegant (maybe sexually ambivalent) first-class brat, loses his way somewhere between the opening number and the "duel scene," where he gets embedded with the "West Side Story" chorus line. It's all downhill from there.

Storyline aside, what did I think of the dancing? Well, skillful the dance moves might be, and they looked torturous, but I expect my ballet to exhilarate, to inspire, to delight, to break my heart, or to be divinely beautiful. This ballet did none of these.

I won't even go into the big production "Thriller"-esque number.

Well, we did see inside the Main Theatre.