"Brokeback" it is!
An interview with director Krzysztof Warlikowski in the current issue of Takt, the house magazine for the Bayerisches Staatsoper, confirms that you, cher public, were exactly right about the “slant” of his new production of Yevgeny Onegin opening tonight in Munich. In the interview (available online, as is the rest of the magazine, in pdf format), Warlikowski draws parallels between Tchaikovksy’s life and several plot points of the opera, concluding
Homosexualität verbergen zu müssen und nicht verbergen zu können, das ist für mich der Schlüssel zu diesem Werk. Denken Sie nur an den Film “Brokeback Mountain” von Ang Lee: kein Schwulenfilm, sondern die Geschichte von zwei Menschen, die gegen ihre Leidenschaft ankämpfen müssen, weil die Gesellschaft sie ihnen nicht erlaubt – zwei Menschen, die ihre Liebe zueinander jahrelang nur in Blicken oder kurzen Berührungen leben dürfen.
The interviewer, naturally enough, goes for the followup: “Was hat das mit Tatjana und Onegin zu tun?” As it turns out, Warlikowski’s take is pretty much standard queer theory:
Auch Tatjana will gegen die Regeln der Gesellschaft leben – genau wie wie beiden Jungen aus “Brokeback Mountain”. In der Briefszene bietet sie Onegin ihre bedingungslose Liebe an, sie will sich das Recht nehmen, ein glückliches Leben führen zu dürfen – in einer Zeit, in der die Frauen, siehe ihre Mutter oder die Njanja, eben nicht glücklich waren und nicht aus Liebe geheiratet haben. Tatjana will genau das . . . . Für mich ist [Onegins] Duellszene mit Lenski fast eine liebesszene. Ist es nicht bemerkenswert, dass Lenski fast nie Olga ansingt, sondern immer nur Onegin? Für mich ist Onegin verliebt in Lenski . . . . So tötet Onegin Lenski in einem verzweifelten Akt der Selbstbehauptung, mit dem er nichts anderes herausschreit als “Ich bin nicht homosexuell!”.
The Staatsoper’s website offers a short video trailer for the production (unfortunately at the moment available only in a skimpy dialup-size stream) and the audio of the opening night will be webcast live beginning at 2:00 PM (via OperaCast).
Has she become the woman of the world Onegin ecouraged her to become? Well, this is answered in a stanza that didn’t make it into the opera. In Johnson’s stuffy translation:
“To me, Onegin, all this glory is tinsel on a life I hate;
this modish whirl, this social story,
my house, my evenings, all that state –
what’s in them? All this loud parading,
and all this flashy masquerading,
the glare, the fumes in which I live,
this very day I’d gladly give,
give for a bookshelf, a neglected
garden, a modest home, the place
of our first meeting face to face,
and the churchyard where, new-erected,
a humble cross, in woodland gloom,
stands over my poor nurse’s tomb.
I like inventive productions, but this is just silly.
I will give the director this – he has us talking about his concept and its context, for better or worse. I am somewhat leaning toward La Cieca’s point of view, in that the story is not so much about Onegin’s sexuality (I never wondered about it), as it is about behaviors, decisions and their consequences.
Ironically when I saw the Met’s Onegin last winter at the Movies, my reaction at the end was how much it was like “Brokeback” – not for any hints of homosexuality, but for the tragedy of waiting too long to admit one’s feelings and the needless pain it causes all around. “He who hesitates is lost” if you will; the Russian version of Goethe’s young Werther.
Now, having said all that, I do think the production looks like it could be fun and entertaining, possibly thought-provoking, even if not quite what Pushkin or Tchaikovsky had in mind. (I think the director is stretching his justification a wee too much.) But far be it from me to turn down a posse of pistol-packing, polonaise-ing cowboys on a Saturday night at the opera house.
…although, actually, having watched the little video, I think the production looks kind of great. Just…the gay thing is a real reach. And then I typed a lot more about that and deleted it because I decided maybe it’s not entirely. I mean, I still think it’s heavy-handed, but his rebuke to Tatiana could read as a closeted cop-out for instance. Maybe I’m slightly on board with this.
I have always thought that the gayishness in this opera comes out easily if you put Tchaikovsky in Tatyana´s shoes
A Swedish La Cieca admirerer
nibelungen: well, you know what they say about composers with small feet…
Lenski addresses his first aria/arioso to Olga and speaks to her throughout the ball scene, He does not address Onegin more than he does her. He also speaks to Mme. Larina, both at his entrance and in launching the “V vashem dome” ensemble.
In the novel, Lenski is as much a product of his readings in German Romantic poetry as Tatiana is of reading her romance novels and Onegin reading his Byron ( when she visits his library, she realizes he is just a pale copy of his literary models). Anyway, Lenski’s idea of friendship would be formed by the German Romantic idea of idealized close friendships and so he is stung both by Olga’s betrayal and by Onegin’s. There is of course some homosocial element in this– and in Onegin’s pained self-exile, trying to flee the image of his friend dead in the show– but I too think the director is projecting a mite far.
I would however like to see a DON CARLOS where Rodrigue’s yearning for Carlos is made explicit.
I’ve always found it interesting that Tatiana and Lenski– clearly the two people Tchaikovsky cares the most about– have no (scripted) interaction in the opera.
When I saw “Onegin” in Houston starring Bo Skovhus, there was no doubt in my mind that it was a Brokeback thing.
And I once saw a “Don Carlo,” during which I thought Rodrigo was moving in for a kiss on the lips right before the Friendship Duet, and I wanted to shout, “Get a room, you two!” They didn’t kiss after all, but that’s all I thought about the rest of the performance.
I once heard Chester Ludgin (rest his soul) tell of a time a director wanted him to portray Scarpia as a latent homosexual who was really more interested in Mario than he was in Tosca (how he was expected to convey that in a performance, I don’t know).
Chet’s response: “I ain’t playin’ Scarpia as some f*ckin’ faggot.”
The last time I saw Don Carlo, in an Ian Judge production in LA, I remember Lado Atenelli coming up to Salvatore Licitra durring the friendship duet and putting his arm around him from behind, and Licitra grasped his hand lovingly. And I thought “Oh don’t make this too easy for me, Ian!”
Did anyone else notice how Russian all the characters looked in this production? Sorry to perpetuate cultural stereotypes, but Olga in a lime green mini dress with knee high boots and straightened, peroxide blonde hair rather tickled my fancy… Despite my initial horror at the concept, it actually looks potentially interesting.