‘Onegin’ Impersonated

In the opera, “Eugene Onegin,” love is true, but it never works. The lovers’ timing is wrong and, in Tchaikovsky’s world, fate shows no pity. Aloof, patronizing Onegin rebuffs the girlish crush of vulnerable, romantic Tatyana, who writes of her infatuation in a letter to him. There is too much poetry in her, too little in him.

Earnestly romantic Lensky cannot endure carefree Olga’s frivolous dancing with Onegin. In this couple, there is too much poetry in him, too little in her. The results are tragic--Lensky dies in a duel between the men. Onegin’s recognition of his love for Tatyana comes too late. Once married and a sophisticated woman of society, she can no longer honor her affections for the now vulnerable Onegin.

Tchaikovsky lived life infatuated by vulnerable women--they are regular heroines in his work--but in love with men. As he adapted Pushkin’s poem, “Eugene Onegin,” to the lyric stage, he tried to live it as well, marrying an admirer who wrote to him. The marriage was brief and disastrous. After three weeks, it just about drove him mad. He attempted suicide.

The greatness of “Onegin,” Tchaikovsky’s most popular opera, is that the composer identifies with the inner lives of all the characters. He shows exquisite sympathy for Tatyana yet suffers Onegin’s anguish. He desires Olga’s light heart but is as needy and possessive as Lensky.

The new production of “Eugene Onegin,” mounted Tuesday night by Opera Pacific at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, appears true to Tchaikovsky. It is meant to look Russian and, sung in the original language, to sound Russian.

But it does little to capture Tchaikovsky’s soul. The stage designs by Pier Luigi Samaritani are pretty pictures of the old country. Tatyana’s estate is reminiscent of pictures of the house in which the composer grew up.

The duel is fought on a wintry river bank; the oval proscenium and the painted backdrop make it look like one of those snow globes you shake. Prince Gremin, who marries Tatyana, seems to own a suitably grand ballroom; we see a corner of it.

But no one is home in production. Perhaps director Colin Graham, who has had a long and distinguished career that goes back to working with Benjamin Britain, found little to work with in the cast, because most of what is telling on stage are small details. Mary Mills sings Tatyana effectively, she has a healthy, impressive soprano. Her costumes (credited to Malabar Inc.) and dignified manner help her make the transition from lively girl to a married woman who has closed off her emotions, but she accomplishes that transition with what seems like an all-American determination rather than Russian fatalism. From the start, she seems always in control.

Lucio Gallo’s Onegin might have walked stiffly out of an early 19th century Italian opera, stock gestures and all. He is properly aloof when he meets Tatyana, properly shaken when he shoots Lensky, properly agitated when he falls in love with Tatyana. But a loud, bland baritone, he attracts no attention, has no air of mystery.

But then, he has little to play off. Next to Hugh Smith’s galumphing Lensky, Elizabeth Batton is a relatively frisky Olga. Silvia Vasquez (Larina), Josepha Gayer (Filipievna), Eric Halfvarson (Gremin) and Chad Berlinghieri (Triquet) are dutiful.

The cast might well have come more to life with a conductor who did. But Stephen Lord, the music director of Boston Lyric Opera and Opera Theatre of St. Louis, phrased squarely and showed little flair for expressive details. Singing in English translation might have helped as well; the Russian was mush. Neither orchestra nor chorus offered its best.

This is what we used to expect from Opera Pacific, before John DeMain became its music director. But in the last two seasons, the company has become interesting. With DeMain guest conducting at New York City Opera, maybe there really is no one home in Orange County.

“Eugene Onegin” repeats tonight, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. (with Maria Kanyova singing Tatyana on Friday and Sunday), $25-$175, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, (800) 346-7372.