Tatiana

Alexander Pushkin's 1833 verse novel Eugene Onegin, centering on a fatal attraction between the titular ex-playboy and an impressionable young girl, has frequently been adapted for stage and screen, while also inspiring ballets by noted choreographers, including John Cranko and Boris Eifman (each set to music by Tchaikovsky). In his take, John Neumeier of the Hamburg Ballet employs a new score by Lera Auerbach that offers little in the way of lush Russian romanticism, instead exhibiting a chilly modernist tone. Neumeier also focuses on the perspective of Tatiana, the young lady who is at first entranced by the diffident Onegin but years later rejects him, recasting the story as a collage of dream, memory, foreshadowing, and reality that aims to capture the original's poetic spirit as opposed to presenting a literal narrative. For example, Lensky, the passionate friend whom Onegin kills in a foolish duel, is not only transformed from a poet to a composer, but he also reappears after his death as a spectral reminder of the past. Neumeier's rethinking is not entirely successful—the ballet occasionally digresses with too many peripheral details—but it is consistently fascinating, and the dancing by Hélène Bouchet (Tatiana), Edvin Revazov (Onegin), and Alexandr Trusch (Lensky) is outstanding, with the many pas de deux they share in varying combinations especially impressive. Presented in DTS 5.1 (DTS-HD 5.1 on the Blu-ray release) and PCM stereo, extras include a “making-of” featurette. Not a record of a live stage performance but rather a separately made film directed by Thomas Grimm, this is recommended. (F. Swietek)