Choreography by John Cranko
Sets and costumes by Jurgen Rose
Staging - Reid Anderson
Lighting Designer - Steen Berke
Music Director - Pavel Sorokin
Assistant Choreographer - Agnetha Valka, Victor Valka
The plot tries to follow the outline of Pushkin's novel, however, the center story is the story of Tatyana Larina and Eugene Onegin.
Ballet "Onegin" is an adaptation of the verse novel Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin set to music by Tchaikovsky (mainly The Seasons) orchestrated by Kurt-Heinz Stolze.
John Cranko first had the idea for a ballet based on Alexander Pushkin‘s verse novel when he choreographed dances for Tchaikovky’s opera Eugene Onegin in 1952. He pitched this to the ROH board at Covent Garden but it was rejected. After a string of successful pieces for Sadler’s Wells Ballet (Pineapple Poll 1951, The Lady and the Fool 1956 and The Prince of Pagodas, 1957), Cranko left London for Stuttgart. There he created one of the most successful ballet adaptations of Romeo & Juliet (1962) and confirmed his flair for dramatic narrative, in the same vein as his contemporary and close friend Kenneth MacMillan (whose own choreographic language would be influenced by Cranko’s).
In Stuttgart he received full support from Walter Erich Schafer – General Manager of the opera and dance companies – to revisit his Onegin project, with the caveat that the opera score should not be used. Instead it fell to Kurt-Heinze Stolze, ballet Kapellmeister, to assemble various little known Tchaikovsky pieces into a ballet score. Cranko developed a libretto closely following the novel and the ballet premiered 13 April 1965 with Marcia Haydee as Tatiana and Ray Barra as Onegin. Forty five years on, Onegin is considered Cranko’s definitive masterpiece and remains in the repertory of over 20 ballet companies around the world. At the time of its premiere Onegin was hailed a success with audiences and performers, but there was some controversy with opera purists and other personalities (for instance George Balanchine) who did not approve of the opera score having been discarded.
Between 1965 and 1967 Cranko revised Onegin several times. He scrapped the original ending of Tatiana kissing her children good night, as this lessened the drama of her last encounter with Onegin. He also removed the prologue where Onegin was seen at his uncle’s deathbed, and had the score re-edited accordingly. The version we are now familiar with was first performed by Stuttgart Ballet in October 1967.
About "Onegin" ballet