ABOUT

Tatyana, an introvert girl living in the Russian countryside, falls in love when she meets a young man coming from Saint Petersburg: Onegin. He, used to a pulsating metropolitan atmosphere, considers the girl naive and harshly rejects her. Bored by rural life Onegin also starts a fight with his best friend Lenski. The quarrel quickly escalates into a deathly shooting and Onegin has to flee. Years later, he recognizes Tatyana at a high society party in Saint Petersburg: she has become the wife of Prince Gremin. Onegin falls in love with her, but she refuses to leave her man.

In his staging, Mien Bogaert interprets Larina’s country estate as a 1980s Soviet Union kommunalka. Larina, Tatyana, Olga, Lenski and other inhabitants are living together in a small communal apartment and witness the last years of communism under the reign of Gorbachev. The interpretation of the character of Onegin is based on the life of the non-conformist Soviet artist Timur Novikov who got the chance to visit America and met with Andy Warhol’s pop art. Once back in Saint Petersburg, he can’t get used to Soviet life anymore and wishes change. His violence against Lenski runs in parallel with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Onegin also doesn’t feel comfortable in the emerging Russian Federation of the 1990s where laisser-faire capitalism begins to replace Marxist ideology. He particularly hates Prince Gremin who is one of those rich and powerful that belong to the president’s inner circle. The fulfilment of the change Onegin was advocating, makes him desperate and he can’t convince Tatyana to flee away with him …