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Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Gay cowboys and drag queens doing erotic dances find their way into Tchaikovsky's ``Eugene Onegin'' in Munich.

The Polish stage director, Krzysztof Warlikowski, turns this classic romance into a gay love triangle, and was roundly booed for his efforts at the premiere. Cast and conductor enjoyed a warmer reception.

Lensky loves Olga, Tatyana loves Onegin, and Onegin loves only himself. A little late -- after he has killed Lensky in a duel and Tatyana has married Prince Gremin -- Onegin regrets his former snobbery. That's the way Tchaikovsky wrote it, though Warlikowski pushes the composer's own tormented homosexuality into the foreground and queers the pitch for his characters.

The real relationship in this production is between Lensky and Onegin. The duel scene finds them in bed together, with what looks like the cast of ``Brokeback Mountain'' lurking at the back of the stage (a motel room and petrol station clearly visible -- sets and costumes from Malgorzata Szczesniak). When Lensky tears off his shirt and makes his move, Onegin shoots him. The rest takes place in his delirious imagination.

There is no novelty value left in the outing of Tchaikovsky. Half-naked cowboys and men in ballgowns are cheap cliches. An exploration of the two men's relationship is legitimate, since it is one of the opera's deepest and certainly its most tragic. With more subtlety and professionalism, it might have worked.

Yet, Warlikowski comes from the theater world, and doesn't know how bad it looks when you let the entire cast boogie on the beat in a dance number.

Leggy Tatyana

A pity, because this cast is not bad. Michael Volle, world- weary in the title role, brings depth to the part, while Olga Guryakova's leggy Tatyana gives an impassioned performance.

Christoph Strehl's Lensky is lightweight, yet sophisticated. Consistently clear, his final aria is complex and heart-rending.

Music director Kent Nagano does not fare so well. While things never quite fall apart, they often threaten to. Small ensembles and big choir scenes slip frequently into states of minor disarray.

The orchestra plays for him with a voluptuously full sound, yet chafes at the beat of his no-nonsense tempi, constantly itching to pull back and lend a bit of life to its phrases.

The strings sound positively mangy in Gremin's ball scene, while the oboe suffers horrible torments in the letter scene. It is quite possible that a few shows into the run, this might settle into a lean and exciting interpretation. At Wednesday's premiere, it was definitely not there yet.

``Eugene Onegin'' plays again at Munich's Nationaltheater tomorrow and Nov. 6, 10, 13 and 16. The opera is sponsored by O2 Plc.

In the end here is a very good analyses of a person who have attended it the performance.

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2007/11/yee-haw-onegin-preview.html

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