Intermezzo's Russian spy reports back from last night's Eugene Onegin that every single performer managed well with the language, often a stumbling block for non-native speakers.
Elena Maximova (Olga), the only Russian in the Royal Opera House cast, received the only perfect score. All the others revealed accents of various origins, though, to the surprise of my spy, there were no mistakes whatsoever, and every word came across clearly. A frequent operagoer, she said she was "amazed" they'd done so well, particularly when she learned that Simon Keenlyside doesn't speak the language at all.
The well-deserved applause video above is from Saturday night's show - thanks to Kyoko.
