This recent Polish/Spanish co-production has us view the opera (like Pushkin’s novel) through the eyes of Onegin in old age. His vampire-like attraction to and for Tatyana is played – in excessive, camp, slow-motion mode – by the show’s choreographer Emil Wesoπowski. Were it not for the star-is-born presence of Latvian soprano Kristı¯ne Opolais (Tatyana), this extra would steal or upstage every scene. Around Wesoπowski, Trelin´ski essays a relatively straightforward ground production, interrupted by colourful, symbolist and (again, Wesoπowski’s) slow stylised movement at the Larina and Petersburg balls. There is much sexually symbolic overuse of apples, of Tatyana being stabbed by Onegin’s cane and of acting on the orchestra pit rail.

It has to be said that the production as filmed here is not in great shape either musically or dramatically. The chorus dancing and movement are poor, some of their singing in the ‘Pelt him gaily with your fruit’ and Larina party choruses should have been retaken and Meir Wellber’s tendency to drag for emotional effect is not always appreciated by soloists and orchestra. Filipyevna, Zaretsky and Captain Petrovich look at the pit for leads an awful lot.

On the main stage, Opolais’s Tatyana is the stuff of dreams musically and acting-wise, Korchak’s Lensky and Groissböck’s Gremin most effective and Rucin´ski’s dark Onegin a handsome voice that sounds a size too small for the role in a big house (his acting ditto). Musically the production is based on the first, much chorus-reduced version that Tchaikovsky premiered at the Conservatory, so no peasants-gathering corn Act 1 chorus and dance, nor Act 3 Ecossaise. (All this is loss apart from the rather Brechtian recitative that preceeds the Gremins’ arrival at the Petersburg ball.)

Sound is good, filming effective, but the endless presence of over-the-top senior Onegin is quite a passion-killer. It’s unfortunate that this DVD appears so soon in the wake of the Kasper Holten’s Royal Opera production which makes such poetry out of Onegin and Tatyana looking back on their not-quite romance. Hopefully the reviews that greeted that production will not preclude a DVD release into a catalogue not overstocked with compelling filmed Onegins.