Opera North - Eugene Onegin

Opera North bring Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin to the Theatre Royal on Wednesday 18 and Saturday 21 November. It's Tchaikovsky's most popular opera, a coming-of-age story of love, regret and missed chances, and this is a brand-new production that re-imagines the plot in 1980s Russia. It's sung in Russian with English subtitles, performed by a live orchestra and chorus, and it's a co-production with Irish National Opera and Opera Queensland.

On stage, John Brancy takes the title role of Onegin, with Verity Wingate as Tatyana. The rest of the cast includes Caspar Singh and Kamil Bien as Lensky, Jingwen Cai as Olga, Hannah Mason as Larina, Claire Pascoe as Filipyevna, Joshua Bloom as Prince Gremin, Florian Panzieri as Triquet and Simon Grange as Zaretsky. Garry Walker conducts, with Patrick Nolan directing. The production design comes from Leslie Travers on sets, Elizabeth Gadsby on costumes, Malcolm Rippeth on lighting and Maxine Braham on choreography.

The reviews have been strong: The Reviews Hub gave it five stars and called it 'a production for our times and compellingly so'; The Guardian gave it four, describing it as 'full of vivid details... emotionally satisfying'; and The Arts Desk also gave it four, saying it's 'alive with energy and passion'.

Both performances start at 7:00pm, with doors opening at 6pm. The running time is around 3 hours 10 minutes, which includes two 20-minute intervals. Tickets range from £45.50 to £81.50, and the show is rated 12+, so anyone under 14 needs to be accompanied by an adult aged 18 or over.