{"id":38971,"date":"2026-03-24T22:20:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=38971"},"modified":"2026-03-24T22:20:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:20:41","slug":"review-hong-kong-performance-of-tchaikovskys-eugene-onegin-subtle-yet-powerful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=38971","title":{"rendered":"Review | Hong Kong performance of Tchaikovsky\u2019s Eugene Onegin subtle yet powerful"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Since its first Hong Kong appearance in 2017 with the Asian premiere of The Makropulos Case<\/em>, the National Theatre Brno has twice been awarded festival of the year for its Janacek Brno Festival at the International Opera Awards in 2018 and 2025, and best new production for The Excursions of Mr Broucek<\/em> in 2025.<\/p>\n

The thread connecting these distinctions is the modernist Leos Janacek<\/span> (1854-1928), who spent most of his life in Brno, in the Czech Republic, and whose often-bracing music the company performs with a familiarity as recognisable to audiences as an idiosyncratic neighbour.<\/div>\n
This year, with the National Theatre headlining its return to Hong Kong with Tchaikovsky\u2019s Eugene Onegin<\/em><\/span> \u2013 the opera\u2019s first appearance at the Hong Kong Arts Festival<\/span> \u2013 it turns out the company\u2019s deeply personal approach with Janacek remains highly transferable.<\/div>\n

Even in the best of productions, Onegin<\/em> can be an awkward fit on the opera stage. Alexander Pushkin\u2019s original novel can be summarised in a couple of sentences. A cynical aristocrat spurns the feelings of a naive young girl and kills his best friend in a senseless duel. Years later, he returns to find the young girl is now an elegant, married socialite who rejects him in kind.<\/p>\n

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A scene from the production of Eugene Onegin during the 2026 Hong Kong Arts Festival. This photo was taken on March 19 and features a different cast from the March 21 performance reviewed. Photo: Patrik Borecky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While few have ever criticised Tchaikovsky\u2019s score \u2013 a near-flawless blend of solo, ensemble and choral singing with exquisite orchestration \u2013 the composer felt the story lacked drama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Since its first Hong Kong appearance in 2017 with the Asian premiere of The Makropulos Case, the National Theatre Brno has twice been awarded festival…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2909,3569,5231,18903,2742,2148,28,11331,18902],"class_list":["post-38971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-eugene","tag-hong","tag-kong","tag-onegin","tag-performance","tag-powerful","tag-review","tag-subtle","tag-tchaikovskys","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}