Stuttgart Principals’ Thrilling Duets Propel This Telling of ‘Onegin’

Back in 1965, when John Cranko choreographed “Onegin” for the Stuttgart Ballet, the most expedient way to extend the 19th century classical tradition and repertory seemed to be fashioning full-length narrative works loosely modeled on 19th century operas. Such efforts as “Onegin” and Kenneth MacMillan’s “Manon” (1974) went on to become international repertory staples, while others such as Peter Darrell’s “Tales of Hoffmann” (1972) and Cranko’s own “Carmen” (1971) proved less enduring.

Today, in an era of male swans, daydreams on “Giselle” and other intensely personal and often groundbreaking reworkings of ballet’s 19th century traditions, the whole subgenre can look hopelessly middlebrow--even when performed with the kind of care and intelligence the Stuttgart brought to “Onegin” on Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

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Based on a Pushkin verse-novel that Tchaikovsky turned into an opera, “Onegin” ricochets between passages of genuine choreographic invention and an overload of pseudo-classical padding.

The central love story involving the jaded Onegin and the initially unimpressive but adoring Tatiana boasts several inspired duets: dramatically forceful, technically innovative, especially in partnering. The secondary leads, however--the flirtatious Olga and the ill-fated Lensky--are assigned a grab bag of showy steps and lifts that say nothing about their relationship but simply offer virtuosity as a sop to audience expectations. Promise them Pushkin but give them the ballet Olympics.

As if on a perverse sort of scavenger hunt, Kurt-Heinz Stolze prowled through 20 years’ worth of minor Tchaikovsky to come up with a plodding patchwork score that avoids anything the composer wrote about this story and these characters. But designer Jurgen Rose pulls the whole project together with sets so superbly leafy, lacy and diaphanous that the world the characters inhabit always seems to be dissolving, leaving their emotions in high relief.

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In the Friday cast (the first of three slates of principals announced for the weekend), those emotions projected most persuasively in Ivan Cavallari’s Byronic performance of the title role. Besides displaying partnering skills that gave the duets a thrilling spontaneity, he found a high-Romantic sickness of soul within the character that went infinitely deeper than the glamorous posturing that star dancers in other companies have settled for.

Opposite him: Sonia Santiago, a strong dancer but not skillful enough as an actress to show her Tatiana surrendering completely to the dream of love in the mirror duet or fighting against surrender clearly enough in the final scene to make her final act of rejection remotely credible.

In addition, more sophistication, if not glitter, in the last act would have been helpful.

As Lensky, Robert Tewsley seemed able to act and dance, but not to act while dancing: He kept providing classroom exactitude until the movement stopped and only then added whatever feeling was called for in his final pose or in ensuing mime. Elena Tentshikova worked well with him as a pert, fleet Olga; the lightness of her dancing kept their cliched duets eminently watchable. Robert Conn brought refined technique and artful acting to his sympathetic portrayal of Prince Gremin.

In character parts, Melinda Witham (Madame Larina) and Ludmilla Bogart (the nurse) performed capably, but their roles--along with all the perky dance-and-smile “friends” in Act 1, bumbling country folk in Act 2 and snooty aristocrats in Act 3--belonged to an outmoded style of dance drama.

Just as he honed the Stuttgart into a world-class ensemble of dancing actors, Cranko helped advance the technique of ballet storytelling in this and better works--but isn’t it time to move on? Can’t someone get Pushkin’s narrative and characters on their feet without so much candied, fustian pretense?

Under conductor James Tuggle, the Pacific Symphony played respectably, apart from sour tone at the beginning of the last act.