With only one genuine Russian in the cast (Elena Maximova as Olga), some of the accents are a little dodgy, which seems to matter more in Russian than in Italian or German opera. Having Tatyana's husband present at the end, while Onegin proclaims his love and Tatyana makes it clear she loves him too but must stay loyal to the man she married, is also surely an unnecessary embellishment and would probably have led to another duel.
Leaving Lensky's dead body on the stage throughout the second half, however, is a clever and potent touch, reminding us how heavily this death has affected Onegin. Since we later see a double of Onegin himself, portraying his own anguish during the duel scene, it is rather confusing whose flashbacks we are meant to be watching. At times, a dancer (Vigdis Hentze Olsen) appears to portray the young Tatyana, while the older one sings of her thoughts. When the now married Tatiana rejects Onegin, tearing his own love letter to shreds and dumping the pieces into his hands, there’s no sense of triumph or feeling of one-upmanship just quiet. The whole tale is then presented as a sort of flashback, as we see the events that led up to her unhappy state. Even before the music begins, we see the mature Tatyana (beautifully sung by Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova) walking across the stage in a state of anguish.
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