Music: P. Tchaikovsky, А. Sitkovetsky
Scenery: Z. Margolin
Lighting: G. Filshtinsky
Costumes: О. Shaishmelashvili, P. Okunev
Video-art: V. Bystrov
Premiered on 3rd of March 2009, St. Petersburg, Russia
‘Onegin’ is a choreographic version of A. Pushkin’s two-act novel in verse ‘Eugene Onegin’. While preserving poetics and philosophy of Pushkin’s work Eifman’s new ballet presents the opportunity to view the story through the eyes of a contemporary. The production of ‘Onegin’ by Eifman Ballet Company became one of the major events in contemporary cultural life in 2009. Eifman’s name is always associated with most interesting experiments and audacious interpretation of classical works; he renews and enriches the form and the content of the contemporary ballet. The artistic images present an amalgam, a mixture of the real and fantastic, and that causes powerful emotional experience. The same concerns the light and the music. This time the director brings together classical and contemporary music. The combination of P.I. Tchaikovsky’s classical music and A. Sitkovetsky rock music make the audience comprehend the choreographer’s message better. |
In turning to great literature to inspire my ballets, I try to use the art of choreography to express the emotional agitation that comes from communing with the wisdom and creative power of our genius predecessors. The word is an instrument of both creation and destruction; it can generate and it can annihilate. The language of the body, as the most ancient form of self-expression, bears universally understood emotional and spiritual values. By turning to the literary original source, I make it my goal to reveal what is of concern to my contemporaries and what can be expressed only through the great art of choreography. Why did I choose Alexander Pushkin’s novel Eugene Onegin, what is in it that affects me today? The novel has been called “an encyclopedia of Russian life,” in which Pushkin saw and created an amazingly accurate archetype of the Russian character of his time, fashioning a poetic image of the Russian soul, mysterious, unpredictable, and incredibly sensual. I use my art to understand the secrets of the Russian soul. Basing a ballet on Eugene Onegin is one more attempt to express innermost spirituality through dance. I transported Pushkin’s characters to our times, placing them in new circumstances, more dramatic, even extreme, when the old world is collapsing and life dictates new rules. I needed that experiment in order to answer the question that troubles me: what is the Russian soul today? Has it preserved its uniqueness, its mystery, its attraction? What would the novel’s characters do with their lives today? What in the novel was just a reflection of the times and what was a sign of the destiny of many generations of my fellow countrymen? The art of choreography is unable to respond to the real questions of building a society. But by participating in the creative formulation of those questions, analysis, and individual evaluation, we participate in the process of society’s perfection.’ |
…The things took on a different look… |
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