Dutch National Ballet presents
DUE TO THE CURRENT RULES IN FORCE TO COMBAT THE CORONAVIRUS, SINGLE TICKET SALES OF PRODUCTIONS HAVE BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Passionate ballet drama
DUE TO THE CURRENT CORONA MEASURES, WE ARE UNFORTUNATELY FORCED TO CANCEL ALL PERFORMANCES OF ONEGIN. YOU CAN FIND MORE INFORMATION HERE: OPERABALLET.NL/CORONA-UPDATE
John Cranko created one of the greatest love dramas in ballet history. Early love and broken hearts in an incredible choreographic richness make Onegin at least as compelling as Giselle and Swan Lake.
Cranko's Onegin
Cranko (1927—1973) based his masterpiece on Pushkin’s 19th-century verse novel ‘Onegin’: a timeless, passionate love story that throughout the years has inspired countless composers, choreographers and theatre- and filmmakers. The fact that Cranko’s version is still performed worldwide is due to the technical perfection, the intensely compelling story and the collage of Tsjaikovsky's compositions.
Popular dance roles
For the dancers Onegin is a real challenge. The partner work demands the utmost from them. Precisely for this reason Onegin’s lead roles are among the most popular. Every principal yearns to dance Tatjana or Yevgeny Onegin. Principal Jozef Varga: 'As a dancer you have to give so much that it liberates you in a certain way'.
‘Cranko wholesales in sublime partnerwork and complex, high lifts, making huge demands on soloists. All the more remarkable that the technically ever-strong Anna Tsygankova also delivers a passionate performance in the role of Tatjana'
"The ballet has beautiful roles for principals (...) 'Onegin' is a beautifully compact narrative ballet (...) so heartbreaking that it makes the audience tremble."
"(...) Ballet performance 'Onegin' talks about you and me. (...) I do know that I experienced something magical (...) It was the despair, the moment in which human intuitions and feelings attack the fixed data, that made this all the more about us, now. That's how Onegin touched this time, too."
Plot
As in Pushkin's novel, Cranko's Onegin, is set in Russia around 1820. When the peasant girl Tatjana falls head over heels for the aristocrat Onegin, this man of the world intentionally and cruelly breaks her heart. But his conceit is eventually punished …
Pjotr Iljitsj Tsjaikovski
Musically, too, Onegin testifies to Cranko's narrative instinct: instead of setting the ballet to music of Tchaikovsky's famous opera Yevgeni Onegin, he opted for a collage of Tsjaikovsky's compositions, thus giving himself complete control over the ballet's dramatic structure.
Choreography
John Cranko
Music
Kurt-Heinz Stolze, after P.I. Tsjaikovsky
Orchestra
Dutch Ballet Orchestra
led by Ermanno Florio
Main sponsor Junior Company