And there was dancing: Wild Arts' tour of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin concludes at Charterhouse with an immersive performance full of emotional truth

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin - Timothy Nelson, Galina Averina - Wild Arts (Photo: Allan Titmuss)

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin; Timothy Nelson, Galina Averina, Xavier Hetherington, Hannah Sandison, Emily Hodkinson, Sion Goronwy, Rozanna Madlyus, director: Dominic Dromgoole, conductor: Orlando Jopling; Wild Arts at Charterhouse
Reviewed 18 September 2025

Small scale but lacking nothing in heart or intensity, this was a performance that really drew you into the characters' world led by Timothy Nelson's sexily disdainful Onegin and Galina Averina's serious, intense Tatyana.

Since June, Wild Arts' production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin has been wending its way across venues in Southern England, starting at the company's home base of Layer Marney in Essex and visiting venues in Essex, Dorset, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, and as well as visiting Opera Holland Park, London. I missed this last performance thanks to my attending the Salzburg Festival, so I was pleased to be able to catch Dominic Dromgoole's production in its last incarnation at a fundraising evening for Charterhouse.

Wild Arts performed Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in the Great Hall at Charterhouse on Thursday 18 September 2025. The production was directed by Dominic Dromgoole, designed by Tatiana Dolmatovskaya with movement by Sian Williams. Orlando Jopling conducted the ten-piece Wild Arts Ensemble in his own arrangement of the score. Timothy Nelson was Onegin and Galina Averina was Tatyana with Xavier Hetherington as Lensky, Emily Hodkinson as Olga, Sion Goronwy as Gremin, Hannah Sandison as Madame Larina, Rozanna Madylus as Filipyevna, plus Robert Burt, Alex Pratley and Laura Mekhail.

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin - Xavier Hetherington, Timothy Nelson
Wild Arts (Photo: Allan Titmuss)

The production was, I understand, Dominic Dromgoole's first foray into opera. Eugene Onegin appealed to him, an article in the programme book explained, because 'it's very lean, very dramatic, very narrative driven. It felt like there was a way for me to use the tools I know from directing drama to help clarify and elucidate what was already there.' 

There was no concept and the setting was period, mainly established by Tatiana Dolmatovska's imaginative costumes. Dromgoole's focus was not on grand ideas but on the interaction of character. In terms of operatic staging, Charterhouse's Great Hall is not large and this was a very up close and immersive production, the audience on three sides of the acting area. This gave us the benefit of being able to see the characters' reactions in vivid detail and the performance really repaid this close attention to detail.

The set was simply a set of benches, put to a variety of uses with minimal props. Costumes were similarly simple yet effective with great use made of texture so that, for instance, the women's basic white shifts were made elaborate with collars of machine lace, whilst the use of Russian aprons lent a distinctive atmosphere to the more everyday scenes.

There were no cuts and nothing was stinted, we had plenty of choral ensembles and lots of dancing. The cast ten was hard working with just one ensemble member, Laura Mekhail. Most singers took multiple roles including participating in the choruses and the dancing. Alex Pratley was both Zaretsky and played the other small bass roles, whilst Robert Burt's Monsieur Triquet also acted as Onegin's second in the duel. The evening was full of dancing, whether it was the peasants in Act One, the guests at Madame Larina's dance in Act Two or the grand ball in Act Three. Dancing was made to be part and parcel of the performance, as it should be. We noticed, for instance, how at the beginning of Act Two, Timothy Nelson's Onegin danced stiffly with grim determination and not a little fierceness. Character was not just in the singing. 

Then in Act Three during the ball, Xavier Hetherington and Emily Hodkinson (who played Lensky and Olga) joined the dancing. On the one hand this is how the production worked, cast members not part of the action participated in the chorus, but on the other hand it also suggested Onegin having visions of Lensky at the ball and Timothy Nelson's demeanour reinforced this.

Nelson's height made him a commanding Onegin, striking and impressive rather than Byronic yet a man of seductive power whose closed-off nature made him all the more intriguing. For much of the opera, this Onegin did not want to be there and Nelson conveyed this impressively in his facial expressions (and Nelson does have a very expressive face) along with his demeanour and singing. He stalked through the first scenes yet you could understand why Galina Averina's Tatyana was so taken. During Madame Larina's ball, Nelson made Onegin's behaviour rationally determined rather than a need to be outrageous. He and Xavier Hetherington made the duel something intensely focused and at times almost interior, a personal thing. Then in the final Act the tables were turned as Onegin battered dramatically against Galina Averina's poised Tatyana.

In the earlier scenes, Averina made Tatyana quite serious, almost withdrawn. She was not specifically girlish, sensibly not trying to play young which does not usually work. Instead, her Tatyana was unformed and inexperienced, yet willing to take Nelson's Onegin at face value. Averina brought a sense of sustained control to the Letter Scene, letting it unfold in a finely controlled arc where passion grew.  Her interaction with Nelson in the final scene of Act One was finely delineated, as Nelson's crisply polite put downs crushed any spontaneity. All this made all the more touching by the chorus of cherry pickers, delightfully sung by the remaining women in the cast. In Act Three, Averina's Tatyana was not so much transformed as blossomed, her natural demeanour rising to the fore and the way she controlled the interaction with Nelson's Onegin was finely done.

Xavier Hetherington made a passionate, vibrantly intense Lensky with Hetherington allowing his voice to open up to thrilling effect. Not so much a poet as one in love with the idea of poetry, and wearing some wonderfully extravagant cuffs, Hetherington and Emily Hodkinson's Olga made their interaction one of mistaken intentions and Hetherington's over the top reaction seemed all of a piece. As I have said, he and Nelson were impressive in their focused intensity in the duel scene, the small scale of the production have real impact here.

Emily Hodkinson brought out Olga's warmly humorous nature, with Hodkinson always seeming to be on the sidelines with and amused expression on her face. Hannah Sandison made a relaxed Madame Larina, warmly humorous and delighting in her daughters. Sandison's portrayal made Larina far less self-consciously a character and the naturalism of Sandison's performance was finely judged. She was well paired by Rozanna Madylus' Filipyevna. Madylus did not overdo the old lady act, instead concentrating on projecting Filipyevna's warmly sympathetic character.

Sion Goronwy, who spent most of the early part of the opera as a useful extra ensemble scenes, made a finely resonant and rather moving Gremin. Goronwy's strong bass voice resonated wonderfully in the room, whilst he made the words count. This was definitely one of those scene stealing performances. Robert Burt made a delightful Monsieur Triquet, singing his birthday greetings in French and trying to get uncomfortably close to Averina's Tatyana. Burt also sang the tenor solo in the chorus scene for the peasants in Act One as well as being Onegin's second!

In the duel scene, Alex Pratley made Zaretsky rather an uptight stickler and elsewhere Pratley was the major domo as well as taking a large part in the dancing. Here Laura Mekhail provided fine support, singing in the choruses and generally creating a character out of nothing.

The opera was sung in Siofra Dromgoole's direct, straightforward English version though the lively acoustic in the Great Hall mitigated against hearing much of it, despite hard work from the singers. 

Orlando Jopling's orchestra reduction managed to lose little of the original's richness and power. The  ten players of the instrumental ensemble all matched the singers and we felt that little was lost.

By concentration on the characters and their emotional interactions, this production really drew you in, becoming immersive in more ways than one. There was a naturalness to the performances along with a believable emotional truth which went a long way towards the success of the production. For once, opera up close delivered everything that was promised.

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