DANCE REVIEW: ONEGIN
21 Jun'10

JOHN COULBOURN - 
QMI Agency
Rating: 5 out of 5
       
       
       

In a world where it often seems there is indeed nothing new under the sun,  it is left to artists of genuine talent to show us  the same old thing in a whole new light and  fill us with wonder in the process.
 Not that the National Ballet of Canada's 1984 staging of choreographer John Cranko's ONEGIN, could ever have been considered "the same old thing."
       
       

But truth to tell, by the time  the Russian classic  was trotted out  five years ago in honour of Principal Dancer Rex Harrington's retirement — it was a ballet he had made uniquely his own, after all — it was starting to look more than  a little shopworn, for all that it still sparkled with the magic of Cranko's timeless choreography and the majesty of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's enduring music.
       

That was then — and baby, you should see ONEGIN now.
       
       

The NBOC stripped the wraps off what has been billed as a "glorious new design" Saturday at the Four Seasons, and it turns out that, instead of overstating the beauty of ONEGIN's new look, they just might have been underselling the wonders that designers Santo Loquasto (sets and costumes) and James F. Ingalls (lighting) have wrought.
 Visually, this production is a stunner, moving from triumph to triumph from the minute the lights come up on a gorgeous drop, designed especially for the show — a drop on which the title character's name and the epic poem by Alexander Pushkin in which that character first sprang to life, are both etched in Russian.
 In fact, as the story of the arrogant young Russian aristocrat and the young country girl who loves him progresses, this new palette  grows progressively richer, blossoming and opening up as the story moves from  the sleepy Russian backwater in which it begins (perhaps a little too rustically)  to the glittering palaces of St. Petersburg where it ends in utter heartbreak.

       
       
And, under the firm rein of Reid Anderson and Jane Bourne, who's tagged the ballet, the company not only inhabits the story's magnificent new setting, but makes it its own, as well, settling into it and serving up Cranko's choreography with a freshness and enthusiasm that is nothing short of thrilling.
 In the title role, principal dancer Jiří Jelinek makes a dazzling company debut, bringing a long and elegant line and a certain sense of arrogant detachment to the self-involved young aristocrat, Onegin, that is both mesmerizing and deliciously infuriating.
       
       

As Tatiana, the young country girl who falls passionately in love with Onegin, only to be spurned by him, Xiao Nan Yu, is a perfect foil — an innocent romantic suddenly enflamed by a passion she can barely control.
 Together, they follow the tragic arch of Pushkin's love story, turning the final scene into a pas de deux so full of passion that it threatens to spill over into a  full-out contact sport.
       
       

As Onegin's friend Lensky, and his sweetheart (and Tatiana's sister) Olga respectively, Guillaume Côté and Heather Ogden are all dancing light to Onegin's darkness, rendering the tragic end of their relationship all the more heartbreaking for their excellence.
 And, in a lovely touch of continuity, a stream-lined Harrington, touched with silver,  returns once again to the NBOC stage , powerfully cast as the courtly Prince Gremin, the man who will eventually woo and win the heart that Onegin has so carelessly and thoughtlessly tossed aside.
       
       
Beautifully rendered and flawlessly cast, backed by a corps at the top of its form, the newly-designed ONEGIN isn't  merely a new look for an old ballet.
 It is nothing short of a triumph — for the company, for the individual dancers and especially for an audience that was left roaring its approval when Saturday's curtain fell.