Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Pushkin’s anti-hero is a hard man to love. Graceless, arrogant and fatally attracted to women promised elsewhere, Eugene Onegin leaves misery in his wake but his fascination endures. John Cranko’s 1965 ballet of the 1833 verse novella began a splendid revival at Covent Garden on Wednesday.Cranko’s reading is a miracle of dramatic economy: each step reveals character; each exchange drives the story forward. His narrative is modelled on the opera scenario but Cranko was warned off the opera score and worked instead with Kurt-Heinz Stolze’s clever, highly danceable Tchaikovsky collage, which includes extracts from The Tsarina’s Slippers and the soaring love theme from Francesca da Rimini, all lustily played here by Wolfgang Heinz and the orchestra.The corps shone in the airy act-one peasant ensembles and the character playing was first rate. It is 15 years since Akane Takada first tackled the heroine’s sister Olga and she portrays the heedless flirt with total conviction, every leap, every turn, every mercurial change of direction becoming proof of the character’s sunny light-mindedness. She was brilliantly matched by William Bracewell, making his debut as the doomed Lensky. Bracewell can sometimes struggle to bring ballet’s princes to life but stretches awake as angry, ardent young men. The long solo before the duel — Cranko’s choreographic rethink of the opera’s “golden days” aria — was phrased and shaped with skill, Bracewell retarding every turn as if desperately eking out his final hours.All revivals of Onegin are fiercely policed by former Stuttgart Ballet director Reid Anderson, the rights holder, who retains firm control of casting. When the Royal Ballet first acquired the production in 2001 it was obliged to import three of its heroes but the current crop of principals — Reece Clarke, Matthew Ball, Cesar Corrales and brooding Ryoichi Hirano — have all been deemed equal to the role’s challenges. Sadly, there will be no live cinema relays.Clarke, awarded the opening night, first danced Onegin in 2020, covering for an injured Vadim Muntagirov with barely a fortnight’s notice. Still only 29, he shows us every facet of the character: the metropolitan misfit “above his company” in Tatiana’s backwoods home; the ardent lover of her teenage dreams; and the rootless, self-lacerating soul at the poem’s heart. Clarke powers easily through the constant overhead lifts and navigates the complex, almost acrobatic pairwork without a hint of strain. His Tatiana was Marianela Nuñez, displaying her full dramatic range from the bookish teenager of the opening scenes to the glamorous Saint Petersburg hostess in the loving arms of her Prince. Norwegian first soloist Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød is more than equal to the role of Gremin but his casting risks throwing the tragedy out of whack. Every bit as handsome and commanding as Onegin, he never quite feels like second best, yet Nuñez leaves us in no doubt of where her heart resides. In the shattering finale the tormented but unyielding Tatiana rejects the belated advances of the man who broke her heart, her progress downstage clogged by the weight of his embrace.★★★★★To June 12, rbo.org.uk
