Warlokowski's stagg of Eugene Oneg for the Bayerische Staatsoper works om a bold premise: Oneg is gay. Strong mil and dramatic performanc keep the ncept herent and tertg, but ultimately don't nvce.
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THE MET’S STORM OVER GAY RIGHTS, POLICS AND PUT
A productn of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Oneg has ed a ntroversy over Rsia’s anti-gay laws. But should art get volved polics? Jason Farago reports. * eugene onegin gay *
Earlier this month an terviewer asked Vladimir Put about Rsia’s dranian crackdown on the rights of gays and lbians, who have suffered vlent reprisals sce the passage of a discrimatory law this May. Put fend the law, but sisted he had no problems wh gay people – and chose a surprisg example to prove . “They say that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a homosexual, ” the Rsian print said.
Opera pani plan their schl years advance, of urse, but now the Met fds self mountg a productn by a gay Rsian poser, featurg two noted Put supporters. What rponsibili do the Met, as an arts anizatn, have to global gay rights and to the polil realm more generally? In rejectg the onle petn, which garnered the signatur of several major figur at the Met, the hoe’s general manager Peter Gelb ployed a ‘some-of-my-bt-iends-are-gay’ fence to sistep any awkwardns.
It uld also vote the termissn featur of s highly popular HD broadsts or rad simulsts to a discsn of Rsia’s gay crackdown. Yet the Met has no artistic director who n lead the hoe towards polil engagement, and the Amerin mol of arts fundg – which leav stutns pennt on ultra-wealthy benefactors who may not relish a polil fight – means change is is, though, one salutary effect of the brouhaha around the Met’s Oneg: at least has lled public attentn to the homosexualy of Tchaikovsky, who like so many great Rsian cultural figur – Nikolai Gogol and Sergei Diaghilev e to md – would face arrt or worse ntemporary Mosw or St Petersburg.
EUGENE ONEG, A RSIAN GAY GENTLEMAN
In our Polilly Correct tim, is fashnable to discern homosexualy the mil texture of some classic posers and th reem them - there are, for example, totally unnvcg and ridiculo readgs of Schubert: he mt have been gay, bee his mic is non-aggrsive/perative/phallic, full of soft passag... E., a sperate attempt to thwart his homosexualy. Tchaikovsky was a closet homosexual and had ltle tert Milyova, but fearg himself actg much like the vile Oneg, he end up marryg her!
Lt we get too washed up Romanticism, is also te that Tchaikovsky feared his homosexualy beg public and g marriage as a ver was no doubt also on his md. Krzysztof Warlikowski’s stagg for the Bayerische Staatsoper works om a different premise: Oneg is gay.