ANNA KARENINA/ONEGIN London Coliseum

Boris Eifman, one of Russia’s most popular choreographers, says he is creating theatre but I never felt what I was watching had anything to do with either Tolstoy or Pushkin. Eifman has very oddly updated Onegin to 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The recorded music is a mixture of Tchaikovsky and hard rock. The corps goes to a disco. Onegin has a number of anguished solos. When Tatyana writes her letter she fantasises about being raped by Onegin and his gang. There is no duel. Onegin and Lensky fight with knives as if they were in West Side Story. Lensky’s ghost returns to haunt, torment and to make love to Onegin; it’s all very homoerotic. I much preferred Anna Karenina, where Eifman maintains a frenetic pace and the choreography is notable for its spectacular lifts and its extraordinary acrobatic balances. Tchaikovsky, blaring away, backs up the unsubtle emoting. The corps’ key dramatic role is when they, with machine-like movements and sounds, mime the all-important steam engine train.