Eugene Onegin at Covent Garden - the forecast is cold and wet

Eugene Onegin - Royal Opera House, 8 March 2008

Marina Poplavskaya, now 30, has been singing the part of Tatyana since she was 18. And she's Russian. Not a difficult casting choice, then. This is her biggest Covent Garden role to date -- unfortunately framed in a dull, uninspired production. First seen in 2006, but looking more like a '70's relic, or the Met on a budget, its period setting is dominated by bare minty walls and the main novelty, a Vegas-scaled water feature. This massive puddle nearly fills the first act stage, pushing the action out to a thin strip at the front of the stage and a tired-looking grassy knoll at the rear. Tatyana's mid-act letter scene is accommodated by a hut-like bedroom, which has to be ludicrously manhandled out of the 'river'.

Scrim-projected paintings open each act  (for the first, Jeune Homme Nu Assis au Bord de la Mer by Hippolyte Flandrin, left). They connect tenuously with the action, and indeed with Tchaikowsky's own life but, crucially, they don't help tell the story, and their dreamy repose jars horribly with the austere sets and the contrastingly lavish and lurid costumery.

Tatyana's dream scene at the start of the second act is almost brushed over as it melds confusingly with the following ball scene, animal-masked apparitions seemingly becoming part of the later celebrations.

But this is perhaps the most attractive part of the production, thanks to the beautiful and detailed costumes, like a Berwick Street haberdasher's window with their authentically Russian bold colour palette. The problem here was that the large crowd clustered into the compressed space sometimes obscured the real action. The snowy wastes of the following duel scene worked better in all respects.

The water feature is trotted out again for the final act, only this time it is frozen over and packed with skaters. Opera on Ice!  Complete with back-projections of olde St Petersburg. Although this created some symmetry with the first act and successfully points out how youth, with all its possibilities, has given way to the rigid strictures of age, etc etc, its main effect is simply to get in the way, again. There was also, curiously, no sense of the passage of time, of the fact that this act takes place some years later than the first.

The only unqualified success of the production concept is its generosity to the singers, who for the most part perform standing up and facing forward at the front of the stage, so nothing gets lost. And as it's strongly cast, from top to bottom, the vocal performances became the highlight of the day.

Marina Poplavskaya has enormous presence, and she made a commanding Tatyana. The unrelenting steely power of her voice was most effective in the drama of her final confrontation with Onegin. Doubt and vulnerability seem to come less naturally, but she is enough of an actor to convey something of Tatyana's shy bookishness in her physical performance.

Gerald Finley's solid Onegin provided the warmth in this coupling. His suavity on the initial encounter with Tatyana wasn't fettered by condescension, and his desperation and passion were plain to see in the finale. He faltered a little in the duel scene,

Piotr Beczala, with his clear, flexible tenor, conveyed Lensky's ardour and impetuosity well, and he captured something of the self-regarding nature of Lensky's 'poetic soul'. Ekaterina Semenchuk (ex-wedding singer made good), despite a richly-coloured and exceptionally controlled vocal performance, somehow failed to make any clear impression as Olga.

Diana Montague's Larina and Elizabeth Sikora's Filipievna were both excellent, elevating the opening scene to a convincing exploration of memory and regret. Brindley Sherratt, playing Gremin (Hans-Peter König takes over for the rest of the run), balanced authority and pathos beautifully. In the small part of Zaretsky, Vuyani Mlinde made a strong impression. Robin Leggate's campissimo Monsieur Triquet seemed to have wandered in from a different production (Gilbert & Sullivan en français?), but he provided some superbly comic relief.

In line with the general tone of the production, conductor Jirí Belohlávek gave a rather safe and uninspired reading, but it was a cleaner performance than we sometimes get at the ROH, and his dynamics and pacing showed great consideration for singers.

As with last year's rather duff Fidelio, the Royal Opera House chose a weekend matinee for the opening performance. I count myself duly warned for the future.