FOLLOWING their critically-acclaimed five-week run at London’s Arcola Theatre, Olivier Award-winning OperaUpClose launch their 2018 UK tour of Tchaikovksy’s Eugene Onegin next month in Worcestershire.

This new English version by Robin Norton-Hale (OperaUpClose’s La Bohème, La Traviata, The Marriage of Figaro and Carmen) comes to Malvern’s Festival Theatre on Saturday, June 1.

It transposes the story of Tatyana’s sexual awakening to the early 1960s, a world on the cusp of the women’s liberation movement when new thinking fought against the old ways. Infatuation and self-restraint do battle in a well-tailored world of sleek suits and full skirts, with seasonal allusions to the snow-swept Russian landscape of the original story.

Directed by Lucy Bradley (Glyndebourne Education and OperaUpClose’s Award-winning Blank Canvas), musically directed from the piano by rising star Sonia Ben Santamaria (Link Artist on the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, 2017/18 season) and designed by Rosanna Vize (2013 Linbury Prize finalist); this is a coming-of-age story, a requiem for lost innocence and triumphant celebration of hard-won independence – told through some of the most glorious music ever written.

OperaUpClose’s Artistic Director Robin Norton-Hale said: “It’s been thrilling to work on this feminist re-telling of this rich, complex opera with such a talented team. As Tchaikovsky himself identified strongly with Tatyana, and many opera-lovers agree the opera could have been called after its female protagonist, we feel this is a timely re-examination of this wonderful piece”.

Eugene Onegin is performed by ten singers and four instrumentalists in a new orchestration for piano, cello, violin and woodwind by Alison Holford (solo cellist for OperaUpClose’s Tosca, Dido & Aeneas, La Traviata, The Marriage of Figaro and Carmen) and James Widden (co-founder of St Paul’s Sinfonia).