ARTLESS country girl Tatyana spends her days reading romantic novels and dreaming.

So when a darkly brooding and enigmatic stranger comes calling she is ready to fall headlong into love and out of control.

In the grip of passion she writes - and sends - a letter to him pouring out her feelings.

Although Tchaikovsky's opera is called Eugene Onegin, the composer lavishes most of his attention on Tatyana and Amanda Roocroft, in this new Welsh National Opera production, fills the role with heartbreaking eloquence.

She is beguiling as the shy innocent, touching in the show-stopping letter scene and dignified in her final rejection of the cold-hearted Onegin (Vladimir Moroz).

Few can have felt the sympathy for this tormented wrecker of lives intended by Pushkin, in the poem that inspired the opera.

Through his casual, callous flirtation with Olga (Ekaterina Semenchek), the childhood sweetheart of his best friend, Lensky (Marius Brenciu) is tormented into the jealous rage that leads to their duel to the death.

Autumn leaves swirl in the mists, bleak snowscapes stretch into the distance and country homes or stately palaces are filled with swirling dancing couples in James Macdonald's vigorous production.

Cramped

The excellent chorus people the somewhat cramped stage with an entertaining array of Russian serfs, soldiers and aristocrats and there are fine performances from Joannne Thomas as Tatyana's mother, Linda Ormiston as the faithful nurse, and Robert Tear, who was warmly welcomed by the Hippodrome audience in shocking red hair as Monsieur Triquet.

LG